
Glass \-J 1 £ 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WITH OPEN MIND 




John Williams Bradshaw 



WITH OPEN MIND 



JOHN WILLIAMS BRADSHAW 

n 




V 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON .-: NEW YORK :: CHICAGO 



~~ *-) A i 4j '3 3 



Copyright, 1914 

by 

The Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society 



SEP' -2 1914 
Joyw 

THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 

©CLA379349 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface vii 

Introduction ix 

I. Show Us the Father 1 

II. The Mind of Christ 15 

III. The Mind of Christ and the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures 31 

IV. The Divineness of the Natural .... 49 
V. The Divine Limitations 65 

VI. The Divine Considerateness 81 

VII. Light for the Righteous ...... 93 

VIII. Earth Helped the Woman 109 

IX. Fear Not 127 

X. The Secret of Context 141 



[v] 



PREFACE 

The sermons in this little book have been 
selected from material which was left by Dr. 
Bradshaw — with no thought of publication, or 
even reading by anyone save himself. He was 
so truly a prophet of God that many of his most 
effective sermons, which quickened his hearers 
and inspired their daily living, are not in form 
for general use through the printed page. He 
was no religious essayist, but a preacher of 
truth, of convictions reached in the busy life of 
the pastorate and the quiet, persistent, clear- 
minded research of the study, their utterance 
governed and shaped by his great sympathy for 
human need. His private record of written and 
extempore sermons gave clear evidence of the 
wide range of his thought and his thorough- 
going habits of study and work. The sermons 
presented here are only suggestive of Dr. Brad- 
shaw's frank and helpful preaching; the per- 
manent and full record has been written in the 
lives of those of us who called him Pastor and 
Friend. 

Dr. Bradshaw was born at Crown Point, N. 
Y., July 7, 1849. He died of spinal sclerosis 
at Peoria, 111., September 2, 1911. His college 
preparation was made at Middlebury College, 

[vii] 



With Open Mind 

from which he graduated in 1869, with scholar- 
ship honors and election to Phi Beta Kappa. 
For two years he was in the employ of the 
United States Government at Washington, and 
then pursued theological studies at Chicago 
Seminary, where he received his degree in Di- 
vinity, and later the honorary degree of Doctor 
of Divinity. His pastorates were notable: at 
Batavia, 111., for six years, at Rochester, Minn., 
for six years; and then three remarkable col- 
lege pastorates, at Galesburg, 111., for three 
years ; at Ann Arbor, for twelve years ; and the 
last ten years of his service, at Oberlin, Ohio, in 
the historic First Church, as a worthy succes- 
sor of Finney and Brand. 

W. F. Bohn. 

Oberlin, September, 1913, 



[viii] 



INTRODUCTION 

John Williams Bkadshaw was a preaching 
thinker who worked quietly at his high calling 
for nearly forty years with a mind steadily 
open to the Christian view of the world that is 
slowly being shaped by the processes of scien- 
tific investigation and reverent philosophical 
reflection. He sought for no conspicuous rec- 
ognition in the periodicals or organization of 
the church. He rather went quietly on his way 
thinking deeply and preaching simply — so 
quietly and simply that not every one realized 
the deep reaches of his thought. He made no 
provision for literary recognition after he 
should pass away; his parishioners who read 
this volume will wonder why certain sermons 
they have heard do not appear here. The rea- 
son is that his greatest sermons were never 
written out and exist only in outlines. Through 
three of his pastorates, covering a period of 
twenty-five years, he was subjected to the ex- 
acting, stimulating demands of college commu- 
nities — Galesburg, Ann Arbor, and Oberlin. 
His native mental alertness of mind, sincerity 
and sympathy had ample opportunity for ex- 
ercise and development. 

A strange feature of his successful career 

[fat] 



With Open Mind 

was his fear that he had made a mistake in en- 
tering the ministry. He perhaps felt that he 
had been carried into it by the momentum of 
his ancestry, for his father was a minister and 
on his mother's side, in the Williams family, 
there were eight successive generations of min- 
isters before him. Three of these remained 
each fifty years in his parish without change. 
This haunting fear that he had perhaps made 
a mistake in entering the ministry may have 
been one element of his power because it kept 
him from anything like ministerial profession- 
alism in his thinking. He always came up to 
great religious problems with the non-profes- 
sional attitude of an outsider. One naturally 
remembers him as a man rather than as a 
minister. 

His outstanding characteristics as a man 
were his scientific spirit, his deep emotional 
nature and his strong, respectful sympathy. 

He was a man of scientific spirit. Happily 
in our day this designation includes much that 
would have once been expressed only by the 
word ' * Christian, ' ' and because of such men as 
Dr. Bradshaw the word Christian now connotes 
some things that would have been once ex- 
pressed only by the word " scientific. ' 9 The 
first or second time I ever heard him speak he 
was addressing several hundred college stu- 
dents in the evening "Life Work Meeting" 
under the oaks on the shore of Lake Geneva, 
and was speaking to them of the trend toward 
a recognition of the spiritual that was evident 

M 



Introduction 

in physical research. The illustrations in his 
sermons were often drawn from the field of 
the natural sciences and especially from the 
department of physics. 

He possessed the scientist's readiness to 
do the incidental drudgery of his profession. 
He was always ready to attend the necessary 
ecclesiastical meetings of his denomination. 
He appeared promptly at the beginning, 
stayed to the end, and performed any com- 
mittee work assigned to him with a thor- 
oughness not always found in men possessing 
in so marked a degree gifts usually thought to 
render their possessor superior to such work. 

His scientific spirit appeared in his ability 
to recognize and carefully estimate evidence. 
The minister, unlike the lawyer, seldom finds 
his public utterances challenged on the spot 
by an alert opponent, and in consequence he 
sometimes becomes slovenly in his use of evi- 
dence. Dr. Bradshaw was always his own in- 
tellectual antagonist. He weighed evidence with 
the same exact scrutiny that is demanded in a 
physical laboratory. 

His scientific spirit revealed itself still more 
fundamentally in the activity of his outreaching 
mind that went searching for facts in every 
quarter. He had what Dr. Doremus Scudder 
calls "the passion for reality. " A sense of the 
divinity of facts constrained his whole nature. 
Professor Huxley's often quoted statement 
might have been made by him : l ' Science seems 
to me to teach in the highest and strongest man- 

[xi] 



With Open Mind 

ner the great truth which is embodied in the 
Christian conception of entire surrender to the 
will of God. Sit down before fact as a little 
child, be prepared to give up every preconceived 
notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever 
abysses nature leads, or you shall learn noth- 
ing. I have only begun to learn content and 
peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks 
to do this." It was because of this spirit that, 
although his theological training ante-dated 
the period in which many present day theolog- 
ical problems first appeared in this country, he 
kept steadily abreast of modern thought. His 
mind was always on the lookout to see and rec- 
ognize truth in whatever quarter it might make 
its appearance. 

In combination with the keen intellectualism 
of his scientific spirit, Dr. Bradshaw possessed 
a deep emotional nature. He reached out after 
God with his heart as well as after truth with 
his intellect. If he had been less exacting and 
profound in his thinking, or had taken truth 
less seriously to heart, he would have suffered 
less than he did. He felt keenly at times the 
heavy burden of the mystery of being. 

He was furthermore a man of strong, quick 
sympathy. It was always a gentleman's sym- 
pathy, a thoroughly respectful sympathy that 
came in abundance from the depths of a fine- 
grained nature. Every true pastor must of 
necessity experience a development of the ca- 
pacity for sympathy, but a peculiar draft was 
made upon the sympathetic nature of Dr. 

[xii] 



Introduction 

Bradshaw because of the fact that so many 
years of his life were spent in college com- 
munities. Those who have inner contact with 
college life know that college students do not 
generally find it the jolly, care-free period it 
is sometimes supposed to be. It has its serious 
and occasionally even its tragic side for it is 
a period when perplexing problems are faced 
and decisions of fundamental importance are 
made. It is generally the period in which a 
man settles upon his life work, transforms in- 
herited religious opinions into personal con- 
victions, and perhaps fights a fierce battle with 
temptation. Dr. Bradshaw 's habits of thought 
and own personal religious experience fitted 
him to sympathize sincerely with those who 
were passing through this period of storm and 
stress. Horace Eose, who during his short 
life gave inspiration to thousands of North 
American college students, once told me that 
when he was Secretary of the Young Men's 
Christian Association in Ann Arbor and some- 
times had occasion to climb to the attic room 
of some student failing in his work, defeated in 
his battle with evil habit or with poverty, he 
more than once found Dr. Bradshaw by the 
boy's side bringing him good cheer and bearing 
his burden with him. His own consuming con- 
science, combined rather strangely with a spirit 
of buoyant good cheer, made him a saving 
power to many a student in desperate spiritual 
need. 

The characteristics of Dr. Bradshaw 's 
[xiii] 



With Open Mind 

preaching grew out of his characteristics as a 
man. His preaching had the elements of great- 
ness in it without the impressive appearance of 
greatness at the moment. 

It was great in its simplicity, in the uncon- 
scious, matter-of-fact way in which great ideas 
w T ere presented. They had been wrought out in 
the struggle of his own soul and were brought 
to others with the simple enthusiasm and 
conviction of personal discovery. When clear 
conviction was, in the nature of the case, 
not possible his preaching was great in the 
honesty with which he recognized difficulties, 
grappled with them and welcomed a reason- 
able probability. 

His preaching was great in the reach of its 
thought. It rested on a philosophical founda- 
tion. His sermons were not miscellaneous but 
had great connecting basic ideas running 
through them. He was quick to see and dis- 
cuss all the practical phases of social, indus- 
trial, and political life both in the local com- 
munity and in the nation, but he always saw 
them in the light of great principles. He had 
a well-thought-out philosophy of life. 

His preaching was great in its constructive 
influence. He knew how to seize upon the con- 
structive and not the destructive aspects of 
new ideas that were in process of displacing 
older views. His two sermons in this volume 
on "The Mind of Christ,' > and "The Mind of 
Christ and the Old Testament Scriptures' ' il- 
lustrate this. He had passed through such 

[xiv] 



Introduction 

struggles to win his own faith and had such 
strong human sympathy that he could never 
preach with any other purpose than to build 
up faith — but it had to be an honest faith. 

It was always his personality that gave 
power to his preaching and at the last G-od 
used his personality in a way that no one had 
anticipated to strengthen the faith of those to 
whom he ministered. He finally passed over 
the verge of nervous prostration which had 
more than once appeared threateningly before 
him. He sank into settled melancholia, and 
after two years of wasting illness death re- 
leased his tortured spirit. 

The unconscious message of his life was con- 
structive to the end because the lesson of these 
last two years was a most effective witness to 
immortality. It is simply impossible to sup- 
pose that such a life as he had lived could end 
forever in the misapprehensions that darkened 
his last months. If such a life could end forever 
in black despair we should be reduced to per- 
manent intellectual and moral confusion. It 
must be that his clouded spirit came again to 
its proper self in the clear, quiet glory of God. 
He must have gone out to view the mystery of 
being from a point of greater vantage — the 
mystery of being with its deep undercurrents 
of feeling that flow through the individual and 
relate him to universal being, the mystery of 
being with its high purposes that struggle to 
keep a straight course in the life of the individ- 



[xv] 



With Open Mind 

ual and bear him nearer to the heart at the 
center of the universe. 

He has heard in clearer tones the great 
answer of Jesus Christ to the heart's long cry 
for God of which he speaks in the sermon on 
"Show Us the Father": "As each generation 
passes from the bright cloudless morning of 
youth to the burden and heat of the day and 
so on to the lengthening shadows, the cry of 
its heart, growing deeper and ever deeper, is 
the appeal of the desponding Philip, 'Lord, 
show us the Father.' Oh! to know the real 
heart of that inscrutable One, from whom we 
come, to whom we hasten. To that cry it 
is that Jesus gives answer: 'He that hath 
seen me hath seen the Father. From hence- 
forth ye know him and have seen him. ' ' ' 

EDWAKD I. BOSWOETH. 



[xvi] 



CHAPTER I 
SHOW US THE FATHER 



CHAPTER I 

Show Us the Father 

John 14: 8, 9a and 7b — Philip saith unto him, Lord, show 
us the Father and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, 
Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not Tcnow 
me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. 
From henceforth ye Tcnow him and have seen him. 

T> ECAUSE nineteen hundred years ago, of a 
-*-* humble mother in an obscure village of an 
insignificant province, a little babe was born, the 
great modern world with its multitudinous peo- 
ples, its vast and complicated interests, com- 
mercial, social, political, during one week in the 
year pauses for an instant in its whirlwind 
rush; listens for a moment for the voice at its 
heart; and as it surges forward again in its 
onward sweep, it is with an added light upon 
its face, an added tenderness in its spirit. 

The question of greater importance to each 
human heart and to the world than all others, 
the question which gathers up into itself all 
welfare and all hope, is the question, "What is 
the nature of that Ultimate Eeality upon which 
our being depends : whom for want of a better 
name we call God?" 

An illumining truth, with far-reaching im- 
plications, which we are coming to apprehend 
in these recent days, is that the Incarnation of 

[3] 



With Open Mind 

God is not a solitary, unique event in the his- 
tory of the ages. Bather that incarnation is 
the order of the universe. From the deistic 
conception of God apart from his world, view- 
ing it from afar, controlling it by irruption 
from without so far as he controls it at all, the 
thought of our time is turning to the concep- 
tion of the indwelling God; God within his 
world; himself at the heart of the universe; 
himself the fountain of that resident energy 
which, finding outlet in the various forms of 
force, effects and constitutes the ongoing of the 
world. 

From the beginning, the heavens have been 
declaring the glory of God and the firmament 
showing his handiwork. Day after day utters 
speech; night after night proclaims knowledge 
of God. To the one who has eyes to perceive, 
the glory of each dawn, the splendor of each 
evening sky is a fresh, new word from the Eter- 
nal Living One who inhabits all things. Since 
the creation of the world, the invisible things 
of him are clearly seen, being perceived 
through the things that are made. Incarnation 
for revelation, indwelling in his universe for 
the purpose of expressing himself through it, 
this has been the procedure of the Eternal Mind 
from the beginning. And from the beginning, 
also, the revelation of God in attributes and 
character has been as fast and as full as the 
medium through which the revelation was made 
rendered practicable. 

In and through the earth, formless and void, 
[*] 



Show Us the Father 

chaotic, only the most limited and defective dis- 
closure of the characteristics of personality was 
possible. But from that time forward the story 
of the universe has been this: the evolving of 
higher and higher media of self -revelation 
through the indwelling energy of God ; and the 
more and more complete revelation of God as 
the media available made self-disclosure pos- 
sible. 

Through matter in its primary form, res- 
ponding only to the operation of gravity and 
the molecular forces, the expression of the 
Eternal Mind was of necessity limited and de- 
fective. With the advent of crystallization 
there appears the hint of plan and a planner. 
In the appearance of life in its ascending 
stages, purpose far-reaching and glorious finds 
its voice. But it is only through, as well as to 
persons that personality can make declaration 
of itself. The spirit of man is the candle of 
the Lord. 

It is through man alone, made in the image 
of his Creator, that the character of the Eter- 
nal One may hope for anything like adequate 
expression. In man a voice speaks, not him- 
self. As man heeds that voice, permits it to 
guide him, he himself becomes a revelation, a 
reflection of him whose voice it is. 

The purpose for man from the outset was 
that he should be the incarnate expression of 
deity. But for sin this purpose would have 
been realized. As man is docile, obedient to the 
heavenly voice, the revelation of the Holy One 

[5] 



With Open Mind 

to him and through him becomes clearer, more 
complete. As he rejects the voice within, be- 
comes stubborn, intractable, the voice is si- 
lenced, the mind is darkened, the revelation in 
character is hindered. We speak, and rightly, 
of the prophets as inspired; holy men, moved 
of the Holy Spirit. Not always sufficiently 
considered, perhaps, is the fact that it was what 
they were, their spirit and life, which consti- 
tuted God's chief revelation of himself to the 
men of their day. In Hosea, and Jeremiah, and 
Ezekiel and Daniel themselves, in the character 
which they exhibited under the stress of life 
it was that God made most ample disclosure of 
himself, rather than in the words they spoke 
or wrote. 

To those who know him, no man can say 
more than he is. It is from the man himself 
that his word takes significance. Character, 
not speech, is the highest form of revelation. 
It is not even the teaching of Jesus, but Jesus 
himself, who is the effulgence of the Father's 
glory, the very impress of his substance. Fore- 
runners of the Christ these great prophets 
were ; not only as foretelling the coming of the 
perfect revelation, but as themselves anticipat- 
ing that disclosure, even though inadequately; 
in their imperfect measure illustrating that in- 
carnation — God revealing himself in a human 
life — whose completeness was to be. 

And yet it was but an imperfect, inadequate 
expression of the divine character, which the 
life even of these best men made possible. 

[6] 



Show Us the Father 

That they, like others, still suffered from the 
marring, limiting effects of sin, none appre- 
ciated more deeply than themselves. From the 
mirror of their personality but a distorted re- 
flection of the face of God was possible. Not 
till the sinless should appear in human history 
could the age-long process culminate, and the 
incarnation of God for the revelation of him- 
self attain its perfection. 

And when the fulness of time had come, God 
sent forth his Son, born of a woman. And this 
it was which woke in the heart of the angels the 
song which sounded above the hills of Bethle- 
hem; that now at last in human history had 
one appeared, susceptible of perfectly receiv- 
ing the divine impress and of reflecting God to 
the world. This it is which is signified by the 
virgin birth. A personality in whom the Spirit 
of the Eternal may have unrestricted habita- 
tion. A true Son, in whom there may be per- 
fect reproduction of the Father's character. No 
man hath seen God at any time. The only be- 
gotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, 
he hath interpreted him; hath imaged him 
forth. Men need no longer walk in darkness as 
to the character of the Creator. In Jesus is the 
light of life. 

"I am in the Father and the Father in me," 
so he declared. "The words that I say unto 
you I speak not from myself: but the Father 
abiding in me doeth his works. Believe me that 
I am in the Father and the Father in me. He 
that hath seen me hath seen the Father. From 

[7] 



With Open Mind 

henceforth ye know him and have seen him." 
And so lift up thy voice in song, 0! heart of 
man. With glad, exultant soul echo back those 
strains of heavenly gladness. The dark cloud 
is shot through with light; the inscrutable, 
heart-torturing mystery has so much as this, at 
least, of solution, that back of it all is One, the 
light of the knowledge of whose glory is re- 
flected to us in the face of Jesus Christ. 

"So, through the thunder comes a human voice 
Saying, 'O heart I made, a heart beats here! ' 
* # * * 

''Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine, 

But love I gave thee, with myself to love, 

And thou must love me who have died for thee! 

" O Saul! it shall be 

A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever; a Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the 

Christ stand \" 

This is the great truth of the Christmas-tide, 
forever new, soul-kindling. In Jesus, God 
shows his heart to us. 

Hear a parable. To the dwellers in a dark, 
shadowy subterranean cavern, with no access 
to the light of day, there was sent at last a mir- 
ror, which, stationed at the entrance to their 
abode and reflecting the beams of the sun, 
flooded their gloomy dwelling with radiance. 
And when the first astonishment of these tro- 
glodytes had passed, instead of using the light 
for their guidance and rejoicing in its beauty, 
they fell to discussing, and at last to wrangling 
over the constitution of the mirror, and the 

[8] 



Show Us the Father 

question whether it was or was not of the same 
essence as the light which it reflected. 

In the thought of the Christian world con- 
cerning the saying of Jesus, "He that hath 
seen me hath seen the Father, ' ' there has often 
been sad confusion of subject and predicate, 
with melancholy consequences resulting there- 
from. The utterance has been treated as if it 
were an assertion concerning Jesus; when in 
truth it is a teaching concerning God. 

It was in answer to the appeal, "Lord, show 
us the Father," that the words were spoken; 
and what they affirm is not something about 
Jesus but something about the Being whom we 
call God. 

The problem of the person of Jesus is indeed 
one of profoundest import, the theme of most 
reverent study for the greatest minds. But 
the great first thing which men need to know 
is not what Jesus is in his essential being ; but 
what that tremendous energy, which holds us in 
its grasp, which ushers us into life, which car- 
ries us irresistibly hither and thither through 
life, and which at length hurries us out of life, 
is in its character. The power behind, under- 
neath my being, what is it? is He? This is 
what Jesus came to make known, what in his 
life he revealed. Except as related to this, the 
essential being of Jesus is for us of no possible 
significance. What Jesus was in spirit, charac- 
ter, life among men, that essentially God for- 
ever is in his heart toward us, his children. 

The deepest reality of human experience is 

[9] 



With Open Mind 

the sense of need ; need great, varied, insatiable. 
The need of that which ministers to the body : 
food, raiment, healing. The need of that which 
ministers to the mind : truth, illumination. The 
need of that which ministers to the spirit : par- 
don, victory, comfort, hope. 

First of all, to this great need of his own day, 
Jesus came, the incarnation of compassion and 
of ministration. He was moved with compas- 
sion toward the hungering multitudes, and fed 
them. He was moved with compassion toward 
the leper, diseased and outcast; and he put 
forth his hand, touched him and made him 
clean. He was moved with compassion toward 
the blind men and gave them sight. He had 
compassion on the people fainting, scattered 
abroad as sheep without a shepherd, needing 
and destitute of guidance, and he taught them 
many things. He was moved with compassion 
on the poor widow of Nain, and by his death- 
conquering touch he restored to her her only 
son, the sole stay of her declining years. 

To the sin-stained and self -condemned Jesus 
was the incarnation of forgiveness and saving 
power. The sick of the palsy found new life in 
the words, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." 
The woman who had been a sinner, as she 
bathed his feet with her tears and wiped them 
with the hairs of her head, heard from his lips 
the comforting assurance, "Daughter, thy sins 
be forgiven. Go in peace. ' J To the woman left 
alone by her conscience-smitten accusers, yet 
awaiting the stern voice of judgment, there 

[10] 



Show Us the Father 

came that word so unexpected, "Neither do I 
condemn thee. Go, sin no more. ' ' In the heart 
of the penitent publican a new life sprang up 
as there fell upon his ears the declaration, "To- 
day is salvation come to this house; foras- 
much as he also is a son of Abraham.' ' The 
fatherly compassion and forgiveness which 
Jesus could not illustrate ; since no son was his 
to wander into the far country and to turn 
again penitent to the forsaken home, he em- 
bodied in that story of the prodigal boy, the 
pearl of the parables. 

Yet again to the grief-stricken, despairing 
heart of the world Jesus was the incarnation of 
consolation and sustainment. In him the weary 
and heavy-laden found rest unto their souls, the 
great sorrow of the world found sympathy and 
hope. He entered the home of Jairus where the 
little maid lay dead, and lamentation was 
turned into rejoicing. He touched the bier at 
the city gates, and the heart-broken mother 
lived again. To the stricken household at Beth- 
any he brought the sustainment of his own 
divine sympathy, and at his word the great 
bereavement gave place to the joy inexpressible, 
as from the sepulcher Lazarus came forth alive 
once more. And over all this which Jesus was 
in those "years which breathed beneath the Sy- 
rian blue" is written, "He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father. ' J 

Above the measureless need of the world 
broods the infinite compassion of the heart of 
the Eternal. To him he bids it to look that it 

[11] 



With Open Mind 

may be satisfied. As under the touch of Jesus 
the five loaves and two fishes were sufficient to 
satisfy the hunger of the thousands, so the 
meager, barren commonplace of life as it seems 
to us, under the blessing of the divine Sustainer 
becomes transformed into the true food of our 
being, suited to the development, adequate to 
the satisfaction of the fathomless spirit of man. 
In the words of Jesus it is the voice of God that 
speaks, "He that cometh to me shall never hun- 
ger, and he that believeth on pie shall never 
thirst.' ' 

Close to all the sinfulness, the self-condemna- 
tion and the moral helplessness of the world 
presses the All-merciful, with his heart of in- 
finite pity and forgiving grace ; with the cleans- 
ing, restoring, victory-giving aid of his all- 
conquering Spirit. In the perpetual self-sacri- 
fice of the ever-living, ever-loving One, the sin 
of the world has its expiation. In the mighty 
restoring energy of the redeeming God is help 
for the most helpless to gain the victory over 
evil, and to attain to the measure of the stature 
of the fulness of Christ. 

Within the embrace of fathomless love all the 
sorrows of the world are enfolded. Under the 
germinating life-giving warmth of that love, 
the sharpest sorrows of those who will entrust 
themselves to it are metamorphosed into the 
germs of everlasting joy, and what we call 
death becomes the gateway of endless abound- 
ing life. Over the black night of the world's 
bereavement there broods divine sympathy, 

[12] 



Show Us the Father 

and a love, which is both love and power, shall 
bring that night to an end in the dawn of the 
day which knows no sunset. 

As each generation passes from the bright 
cloudless morning of youth to the burden and 
heat of the day and so on to the lengthening 
shadows, the cry of its heart, growing deeper 
and ever deeper, is the appeal of the desponding 
Philip, "Lord, show us the Father.' ' Oh! to 
know the real heart of that inscrutable One, 
from whom we come, to whom we hasten. To 
that cry it is that Jesus gives answer : "He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father. From 
henceforth ye know him and have seen him. ' ' 

"I say to thee, do thou repeat 

To the first man thou mayest meet 

In lane, highway, or open street: 

That he and we and all men move 

Under a canopy of love 

As broad as the blue vault above : 

That doubt and trouble, fear and pain 
And anguish, all are shadows vain, 
That death itself shall not remain: 

That weary deserts we may tread 
A dreary labyrinth may thread, 
Through dark ways underground be led; 

Yet if we will our Guide obey, 
The dreariest path, the darkest way 
Shall issue out in heavenly day, 

And we, on divers shores now cast, 
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, 
All in our Father's house at last." 



[13] 



CHAPTEE II 
THE MIND OF CHEIST 



A 



CHAPTER II 

The Mind of Christ 

I Corinthians, 2: 16 — We have the mind of Christ. 

MOST significant affirmation. Paul is 
speaking of ability to perceive spiritual 
things; the things which pertain to God. The 
merely intellectual man, he declares, cannot 
understand spiritual things; because they are 
understood through spiritual insight. The man 
with spiritual insight perceives spiritual things 
and is able to judge concerning them. 

Supreme among seers of things spiritual — 
the things pertaining to God — stands Jesus. 
4 'The mind of Christ" to which Paul refers is 
that perception of things as they are which 
Jesus possessed, in the exercise of which he was 
able to apprehend for himself, and to interpret 
to us, the things of God. 

The mind of Christ, then, is the supreme dis- 
coverer and revealer of what is actual in the 
realm of the spirit. All other seers of things 
spiritual have perceived obscurely, partially, 
in the dimness of twilight. Jesus saw clearly, 
proportionately, as in the light of noon. The 
mind of Christ, therefore, becomes the standard 
of reality, by reference to which the conceptions 

[17] 



With Open Mind 

and interpretations of all other persons are to 
be estimated, their accuracy and value deter- 
mined. 

Jesus saw things as they are. In so far as 
the reports of other men concerning things 
spiritual coincide with his, they are to be ac- 
cepted. In so far as they differ from his, they 
are to be revised so as to accord with his. In 
the case of any question concerning things ethi- 
cal and spiritual the inquiry to be raised is 
1 i How did it or would it look to Jesus V 9 " How 
would he judge of it?" If we can obtain an- 
swer to that question, we have reached a final 
conclusion. 

This is the assumption of St. Paul; it is the 
essentially Christian assumption : that Jesus is 
indeed the light of the world ; that he saw things 
spiritual as they really are ; and that his utter- 
ance concerning them may confidently be ac- 
cepted as the final authority. 

It was the mind of Christ which gave us those 
great fundamental conceptions which underlie 
the Christian idea of the universe. The uni- 
versal fatherhood of God in all its scope and 
^blessed meaning ; the divine worth of man, his 
relations to God and the universe ; and the in- 
conceivably glorious capabilities with which he 
is endowed ; the true law of conduct, fulfilled in 
love to God and one another; these things the 
mind of Christ first clearly perceived, he 
grasped them for himself, and then he gave his 
conceptions to the world. 

The claim of Jesus himself to perfect and ac- 
[18] 



The Mind of Christ 

curate perception in these things of the spirit, 
and to final authority in his utterances con- 
cerning them — the authority of one who sees — 
is clear and explicit. He is sure that he is right 
in his conception of God, as no one before him 
had been. He says, "No man knoweth the 
Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son 
shall reveal him." At a later day, in prayer, 
he says, "I have manifested thy name (thy 
character) unto the men whom thou gavest me 
out of the world.' ' 

The author of the Fourth Gospel makes 
similar claim for the final authority of the mind 
of Christ, when he writes, "No man hath seen 
God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which 
is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared 
(hath interpreted) him." 

And this claim of finality for the mind of 
Christ the experience and insight of nineteen 
centuries has vindicated. Nothing has come to 
light which discredits the supremacy of Jesus 
in the realm of spiritual insight. Widely as 
men may differ in their opinions as to his per- 
son, they are agreed in this, that in his concep- 
tions of things spiritual he is the leader of the 
ages. Higher has the human thought not yet 
reached. 

The keener the discernment, the more pro- 
found the spiritual insight of men, the more un- 
hesitating have they been in their assent to 
the correctness of his perception. They are 
the most ready to concede his leadership in the 
realm of spiritual discernment. Through the 

[19] 



With Open Mind 

mind of Christ and its disclosures, the mar- 
vellous ethical and spiritual advance of the 
Christian generations has been made, and after 
nineteen centuries the world still follows him 
from afar. 

Every new apprehension of things spirit- 
ual, each step toward a more adequate under- 
standing of the teachings of Jesus, but serves 
to make more manifest how far in advance of 
all other men of spiritual insight he was and is. 

In this mind of Christ, his clear perception 
of spiritual things, is the warrant for that note 
of assurance — of authority — with which Jesus 
spoke. He declares, "We speak the things 
which we do know, and testify to that which we 
have seen." "I speak the things which I have 
seen with my Father." 

In the exercise of that authority, Jesus did 
not hesitate to set aside the time-honored tra- 
ditions of his people, and to reject as of no 
warrant usages which were regarded as sacred. 
Established Sabbath regulations, rules and cus- 
toms concerning fasting, he ignored in practice 
and condemned in principle. He assumed the 
prerogative to pass judgment upon the pro- 
visions of the older law, pronouncing some of 
them obsolete and others unsound in root idea. 
The whole body of Levitical regulations con- 
cerning things clean and unclean he set aside as 
of no binding force, and rejected the entire 
theory of ceremonial defilement. He pro- 
nounced the Mosaic law of divorce inconsistent 
with the mind of God concerning the family. 

[20] 



The Mind of Christ 

His oft-repeated form of expression was, Ye 
have heard that it was said to them of old time, 
so and so : but I say unto you something quite 
different. These provisions of the past are in 
accord with what men saw in the twilight glim- 
merings of early dawn. But now the sun is up. 
These crudities must give way to clearer con- 
ceptions: to precepts and principles in closer 
accord with reality. 

No less positive and plain is the claim which 
the Apostle Paul makes for the supremacy of 
the mind of Christ. By reference to the con- 
sciousness of Jesus the permanent worth of in- 
stitutions, the validity of utterances out of the 
past is to be determined. It is the final stand- 
ard. Whatever is inconsistent with it is to be 
laid aside, however venerable, however highly 
esteemed. This principle of the supremacy of 
the mind of Jesus, Paul himself had accepted 
when he abandoned the whole Jewish system 
as a thing temporary and outworn. The strug- 
gle through which he passed, which reached its 
decision on the Damascus road, was precisely 
at this point. Should he accept the mind of 
Christ as to God, his Messiah, the Jewish peo- 
ple and law, and God's purpose with reference 
to them, or should he stand by the faith of his 
fathers concerning these things? In coming to 
the discipleship of Jesus, Paul accepted for 
himself the mind of Christ as the final author- 
ity concerning the entire spiritual and religious 
realm. He recognized in that mind the stand- 
ard to which all things are to be brought for 

[21] 



With Open Mind 

measurement: customs and institutions, hea- 
then or Hebrew, law and literature, Jewish or 
Gentile. With full consciousness of what he 
was doing he fully accepted the superseding of 
all such teachings or institutions of the older 
faith as were inconsistent with the mind of 
Christ. 

Note now the affirmation of Paul to the Co- 
rinthian disciples — That mind of Christ we 
have. In the possession of it we are able to dis- 
cern and to pass judgment upon things which 
pertain to the spiritual life. "But he that is 
spiritual discerneth ( judgeth) all things ; for we 
have the mind of Christ." 

First, in the teachings of Jesus we have his 
mind disclosed. In those conceptions of God, 
his character and purposes ; of man, his possi- 
bilities and destiny; which came to light 
through the words of Christ, we are in posses- 
sion of his mind, his thought, concerning these 
things. But furthermore, the truth which Paul 
is emphasizing in the connection in which the 
text occurs is that, as we become true followers 
of Jesus, as we let him rule in our lives and 
open ourselves to the leadings of his spirit, we 
ourselves come to possess his mind, his power 
of perceiving and judging of spiritual things. 
We see as he saw. We come around to his point 
of view. We are able to look through his eyes, 
and so we share his ability to discern the truth, 
and to estimate the value of conceptions offered 
for our acceptance, of courses we are asked to 
pursue. 

[22] 



The Mind of Christ 

A very wonderful endowment this is that the 
apostle claims for all true disciples of Jesus. 
By reason of its possession we do not need to 
refer things ethical, whether courses to be pur- 
sued or conceptions to be entertained, to any 
external rule or law, in order to determine their 
moral and spiritual value. Letting the Spirit 
of God lead us, we have within ourselves a 
standard to which all things may be referred 
for estimation. We have a discerning mind, 
the mind of Christ ; and in its decisions we may 
confidently rest. What a sense of freedom the 
grasp of this truth gives us. The freedom Paul 
has in mind when he says, " Where the Spirit 
of the Lord is, there is liberty." 

Now no great truth is without its implica- 
tions. No great gift from God is without its 
use. What is implied in the possession by us 
of this endowment: "the mind of Christ"? 
What is the use to which this gift is to be ap- 
plied? For answer we are to look to the use 
which Jesus himself made of this mind of his, 
this perception of spiritual values which he pos- 
sessed. 

First of all in the vision of God it gave him, 
he found life and gladness and liberty ; the in- 
spiration to the life which he lived. Further- 
more, in the exercise of the mind of Christ, he 
estimated the past, the religious past of his 
people. He passed judgment upon its concep- 
tions, its writings, its institutions. Some he 
confirmed ; others he superseded. Some he pro- 
nounced partial; others he regarded as sub- 

[23] 



With Open Mind 

stantially complete; some temporary, others 
permanent; some crude, immature; others of 
enduring worth. In some he saw true glimpses 
of God, his Father; in others unworthy, un- 
illuminated conceptions of the Father of Lights. 

In the exercise of that same mind of Christ, 
the Apostle Paul pursued precisely the same 
course. That long struggle with Judaism in the 
Christian church, which contributes the tragic 
element to his career, the echoes of which may 
be heard throughout his letters to the Galatian 
and Corinthian Christians, was precisely at this 
point. Shall the mind of Christ be final — its 
deliverances accepted — with the abandonment 
of whatever is inconsistent with this mind, in 
the ancient institutions, writings or anywhere 
else! To this question the life and conflicts of 
the great apostle constituted one ringing affir- 
mative. That is the significance of the third 
chapter of Second Corinthians. The Old Cove- 
nant with its appurtenances was glorious; but 
it was primitive, partial, defective, inadequate, 
and therefore transient — to pass away; its 
greatest glory attained in its giving place to 
that new life with God to which Jesus, through 
the mind of Christ, had introduced his disciples. 

Here, then, we have answer to our question 
"to what use shall the mind of Christ which we 
possess be applied ?" To the same use which 
was made of it by Christ and his great apostle. 
In the exercise of it we are to estimate what- 
ever pertains to things ethical and spiritual, 
whether handed down from the past, emerging 

[24] 



The Mind of Christ 

now for the first time for judgment, or to come 
to light in the future. 

The mind of Christ is ours ; a precious treas- 
ure, the guaranty of glorious liberty ; but also a 
sacred trust to be faithfully, fearlessly em- 
ployed to the glory of God and in the service of 
man. 

Looking back over the history of the church, 
it becomes manifest that the disciples of Jesus 
Christ have not always appreciated their high 
privilege and responsibility. They have failed 
fully to claim and to exercise that rich preroga- 
tive which was purchased for them even at the 
cost of the life of their Lord. Abstractly, theo- 
retically, the church has asserted its possession 
of the mind of Christ, with the authority per- 
taining to it. But the practice of Christian peo- 
ple has too often been inconsistent with this. 

Repeatedly, one might almost say habitually, 
the followers of Jesus have sacrificed the mind 
of Christ to conceptions wholly inconsistent 
with that mind, because they have chanced to 
find these conceptions embodied in the ancient 
writings of the Hebrew people. There are 
lurking in the minds of Christian people all 
over the world today dishonorable thoughts of 
God, which are utterly foreign to the mind of 
Christ. They persist for no other reason than 
that some descendant of Abraham, groping in 
the gray twilight of early day, gave utterance 
to these conceptions, and that utterance found 
place in the body of Hebrew literature. In- 
stead of laying such conceptions aside as super- 

[25] 



With Open Mind 

seded by Christ, the body of Christian people 
has too often accepted the gropings of the half- 
blind as the true measure of spiritual realities, 
and has cramped and mutilated the glorious 
conceptions of Jesus into conformity with these 
notions of a far-off age of darkness. 

The mind of Christ concerning God is that 
He is holy love; measureless, inexhaustible 
love; impartial love; making his sun to rise 
upon the evil and upon the good and sending 
rain upon the just and upon the unjust; the 
gracious, loving, compassionate Father of all 
men. 

When from listening to these words of Jesus, 
Christian people have turned back to read in 
the Old Testament the command, "When Je- 
hovah, thy God, delivereth a city into thy hand, 
thou shalt smite every male thereof with the 
edge of the sword : but the women and the little 
ones and the cattle shalt thou take for a spoil 
unto thyself," they have imagined that they 
must distort Christ's conception of the loving 
God so as to make it include the characteristics 
of a deity who could give command that such 
atrocities and immoralities be committed. 

But God is the same always. He was the 
same in spirit and character two thousand years 
before Christ that he was when Jesus lived and 
spoke, and the spirit which breathed in Jesus 
when he said, "Suffer the little children to come 
unto me" could never have commanded that 
baby boys be mercilessly put to the sword. The 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not 

[26] 



The Mind of Christ 

an infinite Herod. Either Jesus or this Old 
Testament writer was in error. If the ancient 
conception is correct, then Jesus was at fault. 
There is no such God of love as he proclaimed. 
If Jesus is correct, the earlier writer was mis- 
taken. He attributed to God, in the dim twi- 
light and clouded vision of the beginnings of 
spiritual perception, characteristics which, in 
the light of the noonday sun, are seen not to be- 
long to God. 

Again we read in these ancient writings the 
prayer of a man concerning the person who had 
wronged him. "Let his prayer be turned into 
sin. Let his days be few. Let his children be 
fatherless and his wife a widow. Let his chil- 
dren be vagabonds and beg, and let them seek 
their bread out of their desolate places. Let 
the extortioner catch all that he hath. Let 
there be none to extend kindness to him, neither 
let there be any to have pity on his fatherless 
children. " And from this we turn to the vision 
of one crowned with thorns, his hands and feet 
pierced with nails which hold him to the cross, 
while from his lips there fall the words, 
1 ' Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do," and it becomes very evident that the 
revengeful supplication of the psalmist was 
not prompted by the spirit which was made 
manifest to the world in Jesus Christ. 

Instead, it was inspired by that very natural 
human, resentment, which we have no difficulty 
in understanding, and which that Spirit of God 
who was doubtless movingupon the heart of this 

[27] 



With Open Mind 

suffering man, had not yet succeeded in wholly 
overcoming. The writer of the 109th Psalm had 
not yet come to the mind of Christ. But we 
have the mind of Christ. As disciples of Jesus, 
not only are we at liberty, for our own com- 
fort and inspiration, to use that mind as the 
standard by which to measure conceptions past 
or present concerning God and spiritual things, 
— we are under obligation to do this, — for the 
honor of God and for the enlightenment and 
consolation of his children. In its hesitation to 
do this faithfully, fearlessly, the church is ex- 
posing itself to very great dangers. 

First to the danger of dishonoring God, by 
clinging to and inculcating conceptions of the 
Eternal Goodness, which, however excusable 
they may have been in the case of men groping 
for light, become defamatory when fathered by 
those who have the clear teaching of Jesus. 

Again, by hesitating to commit herself with- 
out reservation to the mind of Christ, the 
church is in danger of doing that very thing for 
which we condemn the Jewish people of 
Christ's day; that is, of rejecting her Lord 
through slavish adherence to a transcended 
faith. 

A third danger which threatens the or- 
ganized body of Christian believers is that of 
seeing, as the Jewish people saw, many of her 
most promising children following the mind of 
Christ away from the church, because of her 
failure to make that mind her own standard of 
belief and teaching. For the mind of Christ is 

[28] 



The Mind of Christ 

abroad in the world. His conceptions of God 
and His character, of man, and of what con- 
stitutes right living are in the possession of 
every one. The church herself has put them 
there. Theoretically they are the accepted 
standards of what it is right to think concerning 
God and conduct, even in the case of those who 
do not conform to these standards in their own 
lives ; and no institution need hope to hold the 
mind and heart of the future, which proposes 
for acceptance anything less worthy and en- 
nobling than the deliverances of the mind of 
Christ. 

The alternative which faces the church today 
is, " Shall we revise earlier conceptions, wher- 
ever found, to accord with the mind of Christ, 
or shall we abandon the mind of Christ as au- 
thoritative f" 

Surely it is needless to say that this is no 
plea for destructive radicalism. I am giving 
no expression to the spirit which denies, but 
to that which most positively affirms. Here is 
denial of nothing save that which itself denies 
the glorious affirmations of Jesus. 

The word of this hour is simply the summons 
to those who count themselves disciples, learn- 
ers of Jesus Christ, to accept the mind of their 
Lord as their criterion of things spiritual, and 
to rejoice that they are permitted so to do; 
that they no longer imagine themselves held in 
bondage to conceptions which they are unable 
to reconcile with the best instincts of their own 
souls ; that they neither attempt to accept these 

[29] 



With Open Mind 

in fancied obligation to the command of God, 
nor imagine themselves called on to defend 
them against the criticism of those illumined 
by the mind of Christ. 

The mind of Christ is ours. It is ours also 
to affirm the mind of Christ, to rejoice in it, and 
be free. 



[30] 



CHAPTER III 

THE MIND OF CHEIST AND THE OLD 
TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES 



CHAPTER HI 

The Mind of Christ and the Old Testament 
Scriptures 

Mark 9: 7 — And there came a cloud overshadowing them: 
and there came a voice out of the cloud, "This is my be- 
loved Son: hear ye him." 

T T was the mind of Christ as the trustworthy 
-■* authority in the realm of religion, the light 
which sets before us in clear vision the things 
of the spirit, which we considered in the last 
chapter. 

The subject is one upon which we cannot re- 
flect too frequently, too earnestly or with too 
great gladness ; and it is to some of the signifi- 
cant implications of this great fact that I would 
direct your attention. 

In the mind of Christ we have light, clear, 
abundant to guide us in all things which pertain 
to the spiritual, religious life, — our relation to 
God. When he has spoken our hearts can rest. 
Upon Jesus ' conception of the character of 
God, of his relations to us and his disposition 
toward us we may confidently rely. For he 
knew. It was as the Son who abides in the 
bosom of the Father that he spoke. His concep- 
tion of God's thoughts concerning us, of God's 
purposes with reference to us, we may accept 

[33] 



With Open Mind 

with full assurance. In his teaching concerning 
the spirit, the conduct, the life which are accept- 
able to God we may place implicit confidence. 

He perceived clearly, perfectly, where the 
best of other men saw in partial, clouded vision. 
Their conceptions we are warranted in accept- 
ing for our guidance and comfort in so far as 
they are in accord with his. In so far as dif- 
ferences exist it is to Jesus we look as the final, 
trustworthy authority. For us, who are dis- 
ciples of Jesus, there is, of course, no question 
at this point. 

If, however, any assurance as to the correct- 
ness of this position were needed, we might 
certainly find it in those words with which we 
began, spoken on the Mount of Transfiguration 
at that moment when the divineness of the per- 
sonality of Jesus shone forth with clearest ef- 
fulgence, . " This is my beloved Son. Hear ye 
him." 

Those words of authentication have been ac- 
cepted. Jesus has been heard. His teachings 
have been received into the thought and heart 
of the world. His conceptions concerning the 
character of God and his disposition toward 
men are the conceptions universally accepted 
by men who believe in a personal God at all. 
And these conceptions are common property. 
They have molded the thought of the world 
into conformity with themselves. So largely is 
this the case that the standards by which even 
men avowedly non-Christian measure things 
which pertain to religion and the spiritual life 

[34] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

are the Christian standards, the standards of 
the mind of Christ. 

Now the prevalence of this influence of the 
mind of Christ upon the thought, both of the 
church and of society in general, is producing 
significant results. To one of these I would di- 
rect your thought. 

The prevalence and insistence of the mind 
of Christ within the circle of the world's 
thought is, at the present day, forcing a proce- 
dure which is sometimes attributed to other 
causes. It is compelling a revision of the con- 
ception which we have entertained concerning 
the nature of the Old Testament writings. 

Now it is needless to say, and yet it cannot 
be said too positively, that this collection of 
writings, which we call the Old Testament, is of 
inestimable value. They are the record and 
the product of the highest spiritual experiences 
of the race before the time of Christ. In them 
holiest souls have portrayed those visions of 
God which had been vouchsafed to them ; have 
poured forth their emotions of penitence and 
trust and love and gratitude and holy aspira- 
tion in words and imagery which to this day 
constitute the most perfect medium of expres- 
sion which we can find for the deepest experi- 
ences of our lives. Here great-visioned seers 
have recorded those eternal truths of the spirit- 
ual realm which, through divine illumination, 
they have been enabled to apprehend. 

In these writings may be traced the move- 
ment of that increasing, progressive revelation 

[35] 



With Open Mind 

of himself and of men's perception of that rev- 
elation which God made to the people of Israel 
and through Israel to the world. Here, no less 
truly, is to be found the revelation of men ; of 
their dullness of spiritual apprehension which 
so limited the disclosure God was seeking to 
make of himself to them. Here are photo- 
graphed the crude, unworthy, calumnious con- 
ceptions of God and his character which pos- 
sessed the minds of men, and which with so 
great difficulty God was able to displace with 
something worthier of himself. And here we 
may trace the process by which this displace- 
ment was effected, and men progressed to 
higher and worthier thoughts of the Eternal, 
until they were capable of receiving that glo- 
rious disclosure of himself which in the fullness 
of time God made in the person of Jesus Christ. 

It would be difficult to employ language too 
strong in the attempt to express the worth to 
the world of these writings of the Hebrew peo- 
ple. The words of the free critic, Edmund 
Scherer* are none too emphatic: "The Bible 
will ever be the book of power, the marvellous 
book, the book above all others. It will ever be 
the light of the mind and the bread of the soul. 
Neither the superstitions of some nor the ir- 
religious negations of others have been able to 
do it harm. If there is anything certain in the 
world, it is that the destinies of the Bible are 
linked with the destinies of holiness on earth.' ' 

But while all this is true and cannot be 

*(King: "Seeming Unreality of the Spiritual Life/' p. 222.) 

[36] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

affirmed too emphatically, it is also true that 
there is a widely accepted conception of the 
nature of these writings which, through the in- 
fluence of the mind of Christ, is destined to be 
largely modified. That theory is that the Old 
Testament writings constitute a body of divine 
oracles, shaped directly by the mind of God and 
in every particular the expression of that mind, 
of equal authority and of equal ethical and 
spiritual value in all its parts, so that any ut- 
terance contained in this collection of writings 
is to be accepted as the infallible expression of 
the mind of God, and all utterances and con- 
ceptions are to be placed upon a par as equally 
true to the thought and character of God. 

Now concerning this conception it is to be 
noted first of all that the Scriptures nowhere 
lay claim to any such character. Furthermore, 
it is certain beyond question that those by whom 
this body of thirty -nine writings — extending in 
their production over a period of from one 
thousand to fifteen hundred years perhaps — 
was gathered into a single volume, entertained 
no such view with reference to them. On the 
contrary, the difference in relative value be- 
tween the different writings was sharply in- 
sisted on, and they were classified accordingly ; 
some of them being long refused admission into 
the canon, because of their supposed inferiority. 

Nor does the examination of the writings 
themselves seem to afford warrant for such an 
estimate of them as that we are considering. 
On the contrary, the impression received from 

[37] 



With Open Mind 

the examination of the collection as a whole is 
that here we have what is in the truest sense 
a nation's literature; the manifold expression 
of a nation's life, uttered in story, in song, in 
oratory, in fiction, in proverb. Instead of being 
a collection of oracles, the Old Testament more 
closely resembles a kinetograph, a moving pic- 
ture of the life of Israel. As we look upon it 
we see events taking place; individuals and 
groups of people acting, and consequences fol- 
lowing upon such action. We see men learning 
the lesson of these consequences — the conse- 
quences of sin and of righteousness, of faith 
and of unbelief; of loyalty to God and of dis- 
obedience to him — and we hear them uttering 
the truth they have learned for the instruction 
and guidance of others. We see these utter- 
ances taking effect in the further shaping of 
conduct and character. We perceive the ac- 
tion and interaction of all these influences in a 
nation's life, resulting in changing conceptions 
of God, from those that are primitive, defective, 
unethical, to those higher, more spiritual, more 
worthy; as God succeeds by means of the ex- 
periences through which he leads men in get- 
ting himself better understood, and through 
this better understanding of himself brings 
powerful influences to bear upon men to be 
better men. And, inextricably interwoven with 
all this, we find the utterances in poetry, proph- 
ecy, proverb or parable, which were the out- 
growth of the experiences through which God 
was leading men, and we see these utterances of 

[38] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

prophet, poet, wise man or seer again reacting 
upon the life of the people to enlighten and 
elevate it. 

All this resembles nothing so much as a bio- 
graph — a picture of life. Here we have events, 
the interpretation of those events for ethical 
purposes, the reaction both of the events and 
their interpretation upon the mind and charac- 
ter of the people, and the expression in literary 
form of the effect of such reaction. 

In and through all this, by means of it, we 
perceive a gradually advancing revelation of 
God — of his mind and character and purposes 
— and a corresponding gradually advancing 
spiritual perception on the part of the people, 
an elevation of ethical and religious standards, 
and a broadening and deepening of spiritual 
life and spiritual influence in the life of the 
nation. 

Again let it be said all this is of value ines- 
timable. We cannot be too grateful for the rev- 
elation God made of himself in the life of the 
Hebrew people, or for the record of that revela- 
tion which we call our Bible. But this record is 
by no means of equal value in all its parts as 
an accurate and worthy revelation of the char- 
acter of God or of the spirit and life which God 
approves in men. The various parts are of dis- 
tinctly unequal value. 

The defective, unethical conceptions of God 
which shaped the conduct and character of men 
in the days of the Judges are not to be placed 
on a par with those visions of the divine love 

[39] 



With Open Mind 

which fill the pages of Hosea with pathos, or 
with those conceptions of the divine majesty 
which speak to us in the lofty strains of Isaiah. 
The earlier and later conceptions are not 
equally true to God; and it is not only our 
privilege, it is our duty to discard the earlier 
in so far as they are inconsistent with the high- 
est conception of the greatest soul; and all, 
highest and lowest, included in the writings of 
the ancient Covenant, are to be brought for es- 
timation to the mind of Christ. 

There came a cloud overshadowing them, and 
out of the cloud a voice, "This is my beloved 
Son. Hear ye him. ' 9 

As illustrating what is implied in thus sum- 
moning these conceptions of the older time to 
the mind of Christ for measurement, let us 
study for a few moments an incident from the 
Old Testament — the story of David's bringing 
of the sacred ark from the house of Abinadab 
to place it in Jerusalem. According to the nar- 
rative, the ark had been placed upon a cart 
drawn by oxen and "When they came to the 
threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah (one of the sons 
of Abinadab) put forth his hand to the ark of 
God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled 
(or, as the margin reads, i threw it down'). 
And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against 
Uzzah, and God smote him there for his error : 
and there he died by the ark of God. ' ' 

I think no one of us reads this narrative with- 
out feeling something of a shock. We instinc- 
tively ask, "Can it be that this is altogether 

[40] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

accurate?" And that which leads us to raise 
the question is the mind of Christ. That is to 
say, it is because of the conception of God 
which Jesus has given us that we are impelled 
to inquire whether there must not be some mis- 
take. The devil worshipper of Africa, the 
Hindu worshipper of Siva, who believes in a 
cruel deity, would raise no question concerning 
the occurrence. To him nothing here is incon- 
sistent with the character of his deity. But 
because of what we have come to believe con- 
cerning God through the teaching of Jesus, we 
cannot repress the feeling that there must be a 
mistake somewhere. And under the warrant of 
the conception of God as the loving Father of 
all men we feel justified in scrutinizing the 
account, to see whether possibly some quali- 
fying light may be thrown upon it. 

We discover that this incident, like the greater 
part of Old Testament narrative, is not pure 
history, as we understand it, — the simple re- 
cording of events. It is history used for the 
impression of some lesson. The narrative con- 
tains both the record of the event and the 
writer's interpretation of the event. Uzzah 
reached forth his hand to steady the ark and he 
died. That was the event. The interpretation 
of the event by the writer was that God struck 
him dead because he touched the ark, to touch 
which was forbidden by the Levitical law. Now 
the event in this case we do not feel impelled to 
question. Such events take place. Instanta- 
neous death is not unfamiliar. A short time 

[41] 



With Open Mind 

since, a minister of the Gospel fell dead while 
preaching. The event we do not question. It 
is the writer's interpretation of the event that 
gives us pause ; and the question we are driven 
to ask, and we ask it earnestly, is this : "Is the 
writer's conception of God and of his disposi- 
tion towards men consistent with that which 
Jesus has given us?" 

In asking this question we recall that the 
writer lived in an age when the almost univers- 
ally accepted belief was that sudden and great 
calamity was a sign of God's displeasure, and 
was inflicted upon a person because of some sin. 
And bearing this in mind, we can seem to fol- 
low the thought of the narrator in his interpre- 
tation. Uzzah's sudden death was a sign of 
God's displeasure for some sin. What was the 
sin? He touched the ark, and God smote him 
for his disobedience. 

But if this was the movement of his thought, 
we have assurance from the Old Testament it- 
self that his fundamental principle of interpre- 
tation was mistaken. Sudden and great 
calamity is not an indication of sin or of divine 
displeasure. The book of Job stands in the Old 
Testament for the explicit denying of that sup- 
position. Job's friends attributed his calami- 
ties to some great sin of which he had been 
guilty. Job knew better, and God endorsed Job 
and rebuked his friends because of their misin- 
terpretation of his dealing with men. And the 
most positive affirmation of Jesus in the case 
of the man blind from birth, of those Galileans 

[42] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, 
and of the eighteen on whom the tower of Si- 
loam fell, is that calamity is not an index of 
divine displeasure. In his dealings with men 
God does not work in that way. 

And as we study this incident more closely 
we seem to find reason for questioning the ac- 
curacy of the narrator's interpretation because 
of its seeming inconsistency with conceptions 
of God definitely given in the Old Testament it- 
self. 

To his servant Moses, Jehovah is said to have 
declared his name, his true character and dis- 
position, in the words, "The Lord, the Lord 
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and 
full of compassion, forgiving iniquity and 
transgression and sin." But can we conceive it 
to have been merciful or gracious, long-suffer- 
ing, compassionate or forgiving in God to smite 
with sudden death one who loved him and his 
service, because in sudden solicitude for God's 
ark, which the oxen seemed in danger of throw- 
ing down, he put forth his hand to steady it ? A 
solicitude which, however needless it may have 
been, was yet loving? In the one hundred and 
third Psalm we read, "The Lord is merciful 
and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in 
mercy." How are God's motives and action, 
as indicated in the story of the death of Uzzah, 
to be reconciled with this depiction of his 
character? 

And our questioning deepens as we observe 
that the whole procedure in bringing the ark 

[43] 



With Open Mind 

from the house of Abinadab was in violation of 
the law, for infraction of which Uzzah was sup- 
posed to have been suddenly struck dead. The 
ark had been placed upon a cart drawn by oxen. 
But the explicit provision of the Levitical law 
was that it should be carried upon the shoulders 
of the Levites. It was definitely prescribed that 
the sons of Kohath should have neither carts 
nor oxen because the service of the sanctuary 
belonging to them was that they should bear 
the ark upon their shoulders. 

In this removal of the ark from the house 
of Abinadab, therefore, the provisions of the 
law were wholly ignored. Can we imagine 
it to be consistent with any worthy conception 
of God that he should leave this wholesale dis- 
regard of the Levitical law entirely unnoticed, 
and yet visit vengeance upon a trifling infrac- 
tion of the law, which, however mistaken it may 
have been, was yet committed with loving in- 
tent? 

But it is when we measure the narrator's in- 
terpretation of Uzzah 's tragic death by the 
mind of Christ that we are driven inevitably to 
regard it as subject to correction. The God 
whom Jesus reveals is the Father of all men, 
who seeks their welfare; bears and forbears 
with willful, deliberate sinners ; goes after them 
in their wanderings ; pleads with them to turn 
to a better mind ; gives his best beloved to suffer 
and die for their sakes. 

And can it be imagined that the God who al- 
lowed his well-beloved Son to be taken by the 

[44] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

hands of wicked men, crucified and slain, and 
instead of instantly destroying those atrocious 
sinners, still plead with them to turn to a better 
mind, would smite with sudden death one who 
loved him and his service, because inadver- 
tently, in a moment of solicitude for God's own 
ark, he reached out his hand to steady it? God 
is the same ; yesterday, today and forever. He 
was present with that moving company from 
the house of Abinadab, in the same spirit in 
which, in silence, he witnessed the scenes of 
Calvary, and no act proceeded from him on that 
far-off day which did not emanate from the 
spirit of the All-merciful. 

If the revelation of the character of God 
which Jesus has given is to be received, we are 
surely compelled to the conclusion that the an- 
cient writer was at fault in his conception of 
the Eternal One, and that his interpretation of 
the death of Uzzah must give way to one more 
in accord with the mind of Christ. 

In a similar way all the conceptions and 
teachings of the Old Testament are to be 
brought for measurement to the mind of Jesus. 
They represent the early, immature but ad- 
vancing stages of that disclosure of God and the 
spiritual realm which came to its culmination, 
its efflorescence, in Jesus our Lord. In him they 
are fulfilled, and by their accord with him their 
accuracy and worth is to be determined; and, 
if I mistake not, we do well to take heed lest 
in our loyalty to the writings of the ancient 
faith we fall into the error, as in the case of the 

[45] 



With Open Mind 

incident which we have been studying, of set- 
ting the conception of some unknown scribe who 
lived eight hundred years before Christ, in 
contradiction of his teaching, of whom out of 
the unseen, it was declared, "This is my be- 
loved Son. Hear ye him." 

It is worthy of our consideration that if the 
church had always recognized the authoritative- 
ness of the mind of Christ, and had been true to 
it, there would have been no Robert Ingersoll, 
or at least none whose influence as against 
Christianity would have been at all consid- 
erable. For the staple for his attacks upon 
Christianity consisted of those Old Testament 
conceptions which are least in accord with the 
mind of Christ. 

"For freedom did Christ set us free." We 
are called unto liberty; the liberty of Jesus. 
Stand fast therein and be not entangled again 
in any yoke of bondage to the ancient faith. 
Rejoicing in the priceless heritage which is 
ours in these writings of the earlier covenant, 
let us not imagine ourselves under constraint to 
accept any conceptions of God which shock our 
own moral sense, because they were entertained 
in some far-off time. 

We have the mind of Christ. To that mind 
all things are to be brought for estimation. The 
word from the unseen is, "Hear ye him." And 
therefore there need be no solicitude lest the 
view of the Bible we have been considering 
leave nothing stable, — secure, lest we be wholly 
at sea, with nothing ultimate ; no one to assure 

[46] 



Christ and the Old Testament 

us what are final authorities and what are not. 
The simple and sufficient relief for all such anx- 
iety is the affirmation of the apostle, "We 
have the mind of Christ." His teachings, — a 
standard widely applicable ; his mind, so far as 
we yield ourselves up to his leading; the pro- 
mise of his Spirit to lead us into all the truth. 
And there came a cloud overshadowing them: 
and a voice out of the cloud, 'This is my beloved 
Son: hear ye him/ 



[47] 



CHAPTER IV 
THE DIVINENESS OF THE NATURAL 



CHAPTER IV 

The Divineness of the Natukal 

John 4: 48 — Except ye see signs and wonders ye will in no 
wise believe. 

THESE words of Jesus describe a state of 
mind in the men of his day, by which he was 
continually confronted, and which constituted 
one of the most serious obstacles to that blessed 
work he was seeking to do for them. Coming 
to his people with his divinest, most gladdening 
and inspiring messages, and his exhortations to 
noble living, the truth and authoritativeness of 
which ought to be self-evident to any right 
minded man, he was continually met with the 
demand, "We would see a sign from thee." 
1 ' What sign showest thou?" "Show us a 
sign." As if a man in the dazzling glare of 
noonday should refuse to believe the sun was 
shining without a written certificate to that ef- 
fect, bearing the sign manual of the Almighty 
certified to by two witnesses. 

Little wonder is it that, as Mark records, "He 
sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, i Why doth 
this generation seek a sign? Verily I say unto 
you there shall no sign be given unto this gener- 
ation. ' ' ' But of this attitude of mind the men 
of Christ's day had no monopoly. It is perhaps 

[51] 



With Open Mind 

as characteristic of our own time as of his. It 
is the mental attitude which looks for the divine 
in the miraculous, in portents and prodigies; 
which can see no evidence of the existence or 
presence of God except in some ultra-natural 
upheaval of things; some irruption of unreg- 
ulated force into the normal order of the world. 
This is the same posture of mind as that of the 
men to whom Jesus said, "Except ye see signs 
and wonders ye will in nowise believe." 

Now by no words could Jesus more distinctly 
have declared that this mental attitude and the 
assumptions underlying it are all wrong. It 
is not in the miraculous, in irruptive disturb- 
ances, in the abnormal and startling that 
evidence of God is to be seen; not in the pre- 
ternatural, but in the natural; in the normal 
ongoing of the universe. There, all the while, 
spread before the eyes of those who can see, is 
the marvellous, the inexplicable, the divine. 
There it was the Hebrew poets saw God making 
manifestation of himself. "The heavens de- 
clare the glory of God and the firmament show- 
eth his handiwork." "0 Lord, our Lord, how 
majestic is the expression of thyself in all the 
earth : Who hast set the splendid manifestation 
of thyself upon the heavens." Yet living with 
this splendid display, saturated with the pres- 
ence of God, continually before our eyes we be- 
come obtuse to all sense of its divineness; we 
go hunting about for some prodigy, and are car- 
ried completely off our feet by some bit of thau- 
maturgy which is unworthy of an instant's 

[52] 



The Divineness of the Natural 

consideration in comparison with those majes- 
tic manifestations of God with which nature is 
all the while crammed. 

I conceive that it would be difficult for any 
one to do us a greater kindness than he who 
should remove this veil from before our eyes; 
should awaken us to the divineness of the nat- 
ural and touch our hearts into appreciation of 
it. 

The first step toward the removal of this mis- 
taken attitude of mind is, if possible, to dis- 
cover the cause of it; — and some, at least, of 
the causes of that tendency of men which Jesus 
bewailed — the tendency to be blind to the divine 
in the natural and to look for it in the abnormal 
— are not far to seek. 

The first is our insensibility to the marvelous- 
ness of what has come to be familiar. That 
which, when first observed, fills us with amaze- 
ment, and the sense of the inexplicable, on ac- 
quaintance becomes commonplace and ordinary, 
and loses all power to arouse the wonder of our 
souls. I venture the assertion that the first 
time any one of us saw a trolley car rushing 
along its track, propelled by nothing ap- 
parently; the contact of the trolley with the 
wire — the mysterious secret of it all — he was 
filled with astonishment and awe. The wire 
clothed with its tremendous, invisible energy 
seemed to him nothing less than the naked hand 
of God. But all that is long since forgotten. 
A trolley wire is the most commonplace of af- 
fairs; of no more significance than any other 

[53] 



With Open Mind 

wire, except as by accident some unfortunate 
individual comes in contact with it, and, by its 
deadly stroke, we are once more reminded of 
the tremendous power of God which hides 
within it. And it is some such accidental oc- 
currence as this which startles us into momen- 
tary realization of the divine energy which is 
right before us, far more effectually than the 
swift, ponderous movement of the car with all 
its load, which we are continually beholding. 
This has come to be familiar, and so its wonder 
has vanished. So through our acquaintance 
with what is marvellous we become mole-eyed 
to its inscrutable mystery, dead to its divine- 
ness; because it is familiar assuming that we 
have fathomed its secret, and that it no longer 
has claim upon our reverence and awe. 
: We are amused at the open-mouthed wonder 
of the rustic who for the first time sees a trolley- 
car or hears of telegraphing without wires. Its 
newness is past for us and we complacently 
flatter ourselves that we are sophisticated. The 
fact is we are stupid, and the staring country 
man is nearer to a fitting attitude of soul in 
view of the fathomless wonder his eyes behold, 
than we are. So the greatest of marvels re- 
treat from our eyes behind the veil of famil- 
iarity, and that order of nature which is 
palpitating, bursting with divineness, comes to 
be commonplace and without significance. 

Not far removed from this tendency to be- 
come blind to the wonder of the familiar, is the 
other tendency to look to the disorderly and 

[54] 



The Divineness of the Natural 

chaotic for evidence of the divine. The majes- 
tic order, the sublime harmony of the universe 
has no particular significance for us. 

With undeviating regularity day follows 
night, and night day. Year after year, by the 
ceaseless rush of the earth along its orbit, fifty 
times faster than a cannon ball, the seasons 
succeed one another in order undisturbed. 
Without the deviation of a minute vernal and 
autumnal equinox, summer and winter solstice 
arrive, with all their characteristic accompani- 
ments in the realm of life vegetable and animal. 
Age after age, age after age, age after age, 
Orion, Arcturus, the Pleiades continue their 
stately march across the heavens with, "no 
variableness nor shadow that is cast by turn- 
ing.' ' Scores of years, centuries in advance, 
the astronomer predicts the instant at which 
eclipse of sun or moon shall begin; and the 
phenomenon arrives at the very second indi- 
cated. 

Yet this majestic order has no special im- 
pressiveness for us. We see in it no token of 
the divine. But let what seems like the slight- 
est interruption of this divine harmony appear, 
like the unexpected healing of a sick man, or 
the utterance by an individual of a few un- 
meaning words in a language unfamiliar to 
him, and we are ready to fall upon our knees 
in astonishment and awe. As if only disorder 
and confusion were the work of God and the 
witness to his presence. 

Coupled with the two causes already referred 
[55] 



With Open Mind 

to as accounting for that demand for signs and 
wonders which Jesus bewailed, is a false dual- 
ism which too largely characterizes our think- 
ing with reference to God and the universe. 
We tacitly assume that God and the universe 
are distinct and separate from one another, 
even if we do not consciously so think of them. 
We even go farther and conceive of them as 
mutually antagonistic. In our thought the uni- 
verse is something over against God, of which 
he can get the better only with difficulty if at 
all. It is a vast intractable somewhat, which 
it is of the greatest moment that God should 
subdue to his purposes; but the mastery of 
which is a matter of exceeding difficulty and 
uncertainty. 

But the reality is just contrary to all this. 
The universe is nothing other than God expres- 
sing himself. It is his perpetual self -revelation. 
In it, through it, he is all the while manifesting 
himself. Nature is not something apart from 
God. It is divine energy bringing things to 
pass ; under the direction of divine will, for the 
expression of divine thought, and the accom- 
plishment of divine purpose. 

Nature, the normal order of the universe, is 
the unceasing revelation of God. So the He- 
brew singer conceived it, so he expressed it in 
those words already quoted, "How majestic is 
the expression of thyself in all the earth; who 
hast set the splendid manifestation of thyself 
upon the heavens.' ' "Holy, holy, holy is the 

[56] 



The Divineness of the Natural 

Lord; the whole earth is full of his glory' *■ — 
the forth-shining of his presence. 

These then are some of the causes which 
conspire to make us insensible to the divineness 
of the natural, and which incline us like the 
unbelieving Jews to whom Jesus spoke to be 
continually seeking for a sign of God and his 
presence. We grow blind to the marvellousness 
of that with which we are familiar. We fail to 
perceive the divineness in majestic order and 
sublime harmony, and go hunting for it in the 
unorderly and chaotic. We conceive of God 
and the universe as separate, antagonistic, 
when we should recognize that God is the living 
soul of the universe, and the universe the living 
expression, the visible garment of God. 

By apprehending these tendencies which lead 
us astray, and by setting ourselves to resist 
their unwholesome influence upon us, we may 
escape the abnormal craving for the supernat- 
ural which more or less affects us all, and have 
our vision unsealed to that presence of God, 
that perpetual expression of the divine by which 
we are continually enfolded. 

Among the very few occasions which moved 
Jesus our Lord to impatience, this clamor for 
the miraculous was one. "A wicked and adul- 
terous generation seeketh after a sign, and 
there shall no sign be given them." Words 
could not well express more definitely the rela- 
tive insignificance which Jesus attached to the 
supernatural — the abnormal — as witness to the 
presence of God. They who could not perceive 

[57] 



With Open Mind 

him, in that expression which he is continually 
making of himself in the order of his universe, 
would see him, to little profit, in signs and 
wonders. 

I trust there is no misapprehension in any 
mind of the precise point which I am seeking 
to emphasize. It is not the reality of the super- 
natural that we are considering. It is its rela- 
tive significance as an exhibition of the divine ; 
a witness to God and his presence. As regards 
this the position of Jesus is unmistakable, that 
is, that, as witness to the divine, the abnormal, 
the preternatural, the disturbance of the order 
of nature, is wholly secondary and relatively in- 
significant. Even as regards the life of Jesus 
himself this is true. In his human life he, like 
all other men, was included in this universe of 
which we are all a part. And his divineness as 
the forth-shining of the Father's glory and the 
express image of his person was not through 
his separateness from or antithesis to the uni- 
verse of men, but in his being the culmination 
of the universe, the point in which that revela- 
tion, which from eternity God has been making 
of himself through the universe, came to its 
perfection. 

It was not in the unhumanness of Jesus that 
his divinity was disclosed; but in the perfec- 
tion of his humanity; that humanity made to 
bear the image of God, and at last in Jesus so 
attaining that likeness that he could say "He 
that hath seen me hath seen the Father. ' J 

The divineness of Jesus himself, that is, is 
[58] 



The Divinene s s of the Natural 

not to be sought in certain abnormal or miracu- 
lous occurrences in the physical universe, but 
in himself ; in that personality, character, spirit 
which made it possible for him to say "He that 
seeth me seeth Him that sent me. ' ' 

It is this fact which gives their weight of con- 
demnation to those other words to the unbeliev- 
ing Jews, "I say unto you that ye have seen me 
and yet have not believed. ' ' 

That which seems clearly to be implied in 
the teaching of Jesus is that if the supernatural 
did occur, if it were to occur again, it could not 
possibly be more positive witness to God, more 
true and adequate manifestation of him, than 
he is all the while making in that ordinary, or- 
derly on-going of the universe, which from 
eternity he has adopted as the habitual, perpet- 
ual revelation of himself. 

"Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God. " 

Now this divinene ss of the natural is no 
merely theoretical matter. As merely theoret- 
ical or even as theological I should have no in- 
terest in bringing it before you. It is intensely 
practical, and the sole warrant for considering 
it at all, is the wish that you and I should not 
miss the true good; that best which our heav- 
enly Father is all the time seeking to bestow 
upon us. 

The evil effect of our blindness to the divine- 
ness of the natural and our craving for the 
supernatural is manifold. First it leads us to 

[59] 



With Open Mind 

dishonor the living, present God. Under its 
influence, instead of receiving that revelation 
of himself which he is all the while making be- 
fore our eyes, like the Pharisees in the pres- 
ence of Jesus we come with the demand l ' Show 
us a sign from heaven." Instead of recogniz- 
ing that insistent all-enveloping nearness of 
God, in which we live, we blind our eyes to this, 
and go looking for Him in some remote, out-of- 
the-way, unusual manifestation. But, in the 
words of Tennyson, 

"The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the 

plains, — 
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns? 

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom, 
Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendor and gloom. 

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can 

meet — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. f ' 

A second evil effect of this diseased craving 
for the extra-natural is that it leads us to build 
our Christian confidence on a false and insecure 
foundation. The natural, the majestic order of 
the universe is indisputable, unquestionable. 
No man dreams of doubting it. In this we have 
witness to God, ground for our faith, which 
cannot be challenged. 

The miraculous — the violation of nature — is 
always open to doubt, always questionable, and 
increasingly questioned as the mind of man en- 
larges, and through increasing knowledge he 
comes to better understanding and grasps ever 
more firmly the great order of the universe. 

[60] 



The Divineness of the Natural 

Many things that once seemed miraculous, su- 
pernatural, are now seen to be but higher mani- 
festations of nature itself, brought about by 
larger mastery of her laws, not by abrogation 
of them. 

The wonderful works of Jesus are established 
beyond question; but the nature of those 
works is by no means beyond question. 
More and more urgently it is being asked 
whether they were, as has so commonly 
been assumed, definitely miraculous; vio- 
lations of the order of nature; or whether 
they were brought about through his greater 
knowledge of that nature, which is itself the 
unceasing manifestation of God his Father. So 
whatever may be true as to the actuality of the 
miraculous within certain limits, those limits 
are continually narrowing, more and more oc- 
currences once deemed supernatural are being 
found to be entirely within the field of nature 
itself. 

A religious faith which depends on the mir- 
aculous, the violation of nature, as its founda- 
tion, is finding less and less on which to build. 
The faith which sees God in nature is tremor- 
less, secure. In the great universe of God is 
its unchallenged guaranty, perpetually before 
its eyes. 

Another most unfortunate consequence of our 
abnormal craving for the supernatural is that 
it leads us to live impoverished lives in 
the midst of inexhaustible riches. Peering al- 
ways into the out-of-the-way in search of signs 

[61] 



With Open Mind 

and wonders we remain blind to the treasures 
of the spiritual and divine which are every- 
where before us and about us. We anticipate 
that, after death, in some other universe we 
shall find the treasures of the spiritual, and re- 
joice in them. But do we reflect that we shall 
never be in any other universe than that we in- 
habit today? We shall never be any nearer God 
than we are this instant. God is in this place — 
even though, like Jacob, in our dulness we know 
it not. "This is none other than the house of 
God: this is the gate of heaven.' ' We shall 
never be any nearer heaven in locality than we 
are this morning. Life in the realm of the 
spiritual is not a question of locality, but of 
vision. 

When the servant of Elisha, seeing his master 
surrounded by the chariots of the Syrians, ex- 
claimed, "Alas, my master, how shall we do?" 
Elisha prayed that his eyes might be opened, 
and, behold ! the mountain was full of chariots 
and horses of fire round about Elisha. All the 
while you and I live submerged in the riches of 
the spiritual realm; ours to possess and enjoy 
if we will but see and appropriate it. "But I 
do not see," is it answered? Neither do you 
and I see those innumerable vibrations of light, 
less frequent than the red, more frequent than 
the violet rays of the spectrum, which are there, 
notwithstanding, and none the less really so be- 
cause we chance to be blind. The question is 
not of light to be perceived, but of eyes capable 
of seeing. 

162] 



The Divineness of the Natural 

In the presence of that bursting life which is 
throbbing in all the world, in bud and tree and 
flower and garden and harvest, who can be blind 
to the divineness of the natural? Who can need 
any further witness to the presence of God? 

The mightiest of all rivers is that majestic 
stream which, draining by far the greater part 
of the South American continent, at last pours 
its vast volume of water through its mouth, one 
hundred and eighty miles in width, with a mo- 
mentum so great as to bear its flood still fresh 
nearly two hundred miles into the Atlantic. 
It is reported that a sailing vessel in the south- 
ern Atlantic was so long becalmed that its water 
supply was at the point of exhaustion ; its crew 
suffering the tortures of thirst but husbanding 
with watchful care the little water that was left 
lest it be utterly consumed. In their extremity 
their sight was gladdened by the appearance of 
a steamer above the horizon. Tokens of dis- 
tress were displayed and as the steamer ap- 
proached the captain of the sailing vessel 
signalled: " Water, for God's sake, water.' ' 
The steamer without checking her speed for an 
instant veered again to the course she had 
abandoned, but from her bridge there was 
flagged back the thrilling message, "Dip, man, 
dip. You are in the Amazon. ' ' 

Is any one seeking a sign? Let him open his 
eyes. 



[63] 



CHAPTER V 
THE DIVINE LIMITATIONS 



CHAPTER V 

The Divine Limitations 

John 16: 12 — I have yet many things to say unto you, but 
ye cannot bear them now. 

AND so Jesus found a limit, beyond which he 
could not go. There was much which he 
was willing to give, eager to give to those twelve 
associates whom he had gathered about him; 
but this he was unable to do. There stood the 
barrier. Beyond it he could not pass. 

That God is subject to limitation, is foreign to 
our customary modes of thought. Yet this is, 
beyond question, the truth. The Eternal Mind, 
the lavish Giver of good is limited in his ability 
to do for us. Limited not in his resources or in 
his willingness to bestow, but by our own mea- 
gerness, our narrow receptivity. Be it never 
so well disposed, the ocean can impart but little 
of itself to a teacup. In our capacity and capa- 
bility the ability of God toward us finds its 
measure. 

1 i The fault, ... is in ourselves that we are underlings. ' ' 

As regards all those gifts which one person 
may confer upon another, this truth of God's 
limitation holds; and it is no mere abstract 
theoretical proposition. None is more prac- 
tical. In its keeping is all such largeness of 

[67] 



With Open Mind 

personality, such richness of life as we shall 
ever attain. For in every department of our 
spiritual being, intellectual, aesthetic, social, we 
are at the outset but a great capacity, a want 
to be supplied. We have nothing, we are noth- 
ing which we have not received ; and according 
to the measure and the eagerness of our receiv- 
ing is our having, and our being. 

In the bestowing of truth upon us, the impar- 
tation of knowledge, the Eternal Mind from 
whom all truth proceeds, works under sharply 
defined limitations. 

Against these limitations Christ had come in 
his intercourse with Peter and James and John ; 
and for one who has ears to catch it there is 
genuine pathos in those words with which we 
began: "I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye cannot bear them now. ' ' However, 
the pathos is not that of despair. In the case of 
these men the limitation was not final. Jesus 
foresaw the removal of it and the passage of 
these, his friends, by and by, out into those 
large realms of truth in which his own soul 
found life and gladness. 

And this suggests that the limitations under 
which the Eternal Friend must work in his 
dealing with us are of diverse nature. Some 
are transient. It is reasonable to expect that, 
as life goes on, they may be successively re- 
moved, so as to afford continually enlarging op- 
portunity for the divine benevolence to express 
itself, even if they shall never altogether disap- 
pear. To some other limitations, however, we 

[68] 



The Divine Limitations 

shall find that no such hope of self -correction 
attaches. One of those temporary restrictions 
which do not necessarily constitute any occasion 
for solicitude, is that immaturity into which we 
all are born. The undeveloped mind constitutes 
a limitation. To the child it is possible to im- 
part only the simplest, most elementary truth. 
No teacher, however learned or skilful, can 
overleap this barrier. The problems of calcu- 
lus can have no meaning to one who is ignorant 
of simple algebra. As the lad's comprehension 
is enlarged, his penetration sharpened through 
acquiring simpler truth, the more difficult may 
be imparted to him. As Browning puts it : 

" I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile, 
Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself, 
So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: 
When they can eat, babe's nuture is withdrawn. " 

In the normal development of personality this 
limitation may be expected to take care of itself. 

Yet this is but a gradual process. For the 
retention or removal of this immaturity we our- 
selves are largely responsible, and to the end 
of life we never wholly escape from it. Always 
we are children in this particular. To the 
wisest, most venerable who ever lived, those 
words were still as applicable as to the Galilean 
fisherman, "I have yet many things to say unto 
you, but ye cannot bear them now." 

The Apostle Paul is fully aware that he 
knows only in part, and anticipates a knowing 
so much more complete that all his present 

[69] 



With Open Mind 

knowledge will be insignificant. Even in deal- 
ing with him the divine mind is still under 
limitation. 

Associated with this immaturity of mind as 
a hindrance to the divine impartation of knowl- 
edge to us, is the fact that even the simpler 
truth which we may be able to receive must be 
given to us in a defective form. All trans- 
ference of thought from one mind to another, 
from teacher to learner, is by means of sym- 
bols. The very truth itself cannot be conveyed. 
It can at best be suggested. We communicate 
only by signs, whatever be our mode of con- 
veying our thoughts to one another. If two 
who are conversing attach precisely the same 
significance to the signs employed the thought 
is exactly conveyed. But this is rarely the 
case. To one the symbol means one thing. To 
another something slightly different. It was 
accidently discovered that the grandson of Dr. 
William Adams, for many years pastor of Madi- 
son Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York 
City, had great fear of entering the church 
when it was unoccupied. What was the occa- 
sion of this terror it was impossible to discover, 
until on one occasion Dr. Adams went to the 
building on some errand taking the child with 
him. As they walked down the aisle their steps 
echoing through the vacant building, the little 
lad clung closely to his grandfather's hand and 
looked anxiously about till, reaching the pulpit 
he inquired, "Grandpa, where is the zeal?" 
"The zeal?" said Dr. Adams. "Yes, don't you 

[70] 



The Divine Limitations 

know? 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten me 
up.' " You can imagine the good doctor's as- 
tonishment as he discovered that a religious 
emotion had been transformed, in the imagi- 
nation of the child, into a terrible monster 
which inhabited churches and devoured those 
who entered. 

The incident is scarcely more amusing than 
it is pathetic ; for it simply illustrates in an ex- 
aggerated way what is taking place in all our 
intercourse with one another. Barely does a 
thought pass unmodified from one mind to an- 
other. And that not alone by reason of the 
difference in our mental furniture, but also be- 
cause of the defectiveness in our means of com- 
munication. We talk in signs and symbols. 
We convey truth by means of analogies. All 
language is merely a collection of symbols. The 
words we employ in speaking of the mind and 
spirit are terms which were originally applied 
to material objects and relations, which we 
transfer to things of the non-material realm 
because of analogies which seem to us to exist 
between things physical and things spiritual. 
But no analogy is perfect. No symbol repre- 
sents reality with absolute exactness. To one 
mind it means one thing ; to another somewhat 
different. As a consequence, in order that the 
limitation upon the teacher's ability to impart 
truth may be removed, and reality apprehended 
with increasing exactness by the learner, it is 
often needful that one set of symbols be re- 
placed by another representing reality more 

[71] 



With Open Mind 

accurately, and more exactly understood by the 
one who is taught. 

It is this deep truth of our intellectual ex- 
perience which Browning has expressed in his 
poem "A Death in the Desert/ ' 

" Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect 
He could not, what he knows now, know at first; 
What he considers that he knows today, 
Come but tomorrow, he will find misknown; 

* * * * 

God's gift was that man should conceive of truth 
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake, 
As midway help till he reach fact indeed.' ' 

So it is we learn. So it is that the immature 
mind and the sign-language which is all any 
of us uses, set limitations to the impartation of 
truth, before which any teacher human or di- 
vine must pause. 

And this has its bearing on the question most 
deeply exercising the mind of the church in this 
day, that is, the question of the nature of the 
Bible; the revelation recorded in these Holy 
Scriptures. 

More and more clearly it is being recognized 
that this was a progressive revelation; begin- 
ning with the disclosure of simpler, more ele- 
mentary truths, and proceeding to those of 
deeper import, loftier significance. No less 
manifest is the fact that throughout there has 
been endeavor to convey spiritual and religious 
truth by means of symbolism, and that as time 
has gone on the form of symbolism adapted to 
the immature mind, seriously defective at times, 

[72] 



The Divine Limitations 

yet easily apprehensible, has been replaced by 
others more adequately and exactly embodying 
the truth to be conveyed. That this has been so 
is evident from the study of the Bible itself. 
That it should be so was inevitable,; because of 
the limitation which the immaturity of our 
minds is always imposing upon the divine 
Teacher. 

And what was before the coming of Jesus has 
been so since his day. Under the guidance of 
that Holy Spirit, which he promised, the Chris- 
tian centuries have come into the possession of 
many of those treasures of divine truth which 
the twelve disciples were not able to bear; and 
the great verities of the world unseen have 
found interpretation through successively 
higher forms of symbolism. For example, how 
greatly God, our relation to him, the life of the 
spirit, have gained in vital significance for us 
through our employment of the analogies of 
life in the interpretation of these great realities, 
in place of those analogies of law and govern- 
ment in which our fathers clothed their thought. 
And as the past, the future. 

By the immaturity of his children, God is al- 
ways limited in imparting knowledge to them. 
But this is a constantly receding barrier. It 
makes great demands on the divine patience. 
It affords no occasion for despair. 

Another limitation under which God labors 
in his dealing with us, twin sister to undevel- 
oped intellect, is inexperience. No acuteness or 
vigor of intellect can qualify one to apprehend 

[73] 



With Open Mind 

truth of a certain order. It is acquired through 
no process of ratiocination; through no gift of 
native insight. Life is the great interpreter of 
reality ; and truth, of the order referred to, we 
learn only by living. Only through a common 
experience can some thoughts of one mind be 
conveyed to another. The most brilliant dis- 
ciplined intellect of the boy can make nothing 
of some things, which are simple, clear as the 
sun at midday to the unlettered man of ordi- 
nary mind who has lived. However penetrating 
of intellect, however earnest in intent may be 
the speaker, there are tones of a certain depth 
which in the exercise of the eager intellect alone 
are never struck; because it has never entered 
the region to which these tones pertain. It has 
had no experience, as yet, of those great unseen 
realities, through the touch of which these 
deeper tones become the natural expression of 
the spirit. 

"If I were but a young man/' said the great 
master to his pupil of brilliant voice but shal- 
low feeling, "I would win your love, and break 
your heart ; and then you would sing. ' ' " Yes, ' ' 
said a friend to me on one occasion, concerning 
a speaker who had occupied my pulpit, "he is 
a fine young man. Some of these days when he 
has a grave in his heart, he will preach." It 
is through experience one comes to understand. 

There is pathetic suggestion of the limitations 
under which Jesus constantly felt himself, as 
he attempted to impart deep truth to men in 
those often repeated words, "He that hath ears 

[74] 



The Divine Limitations 

to hear let him hear." So many there were 
whose ears had never been opened. 

This same fact of divine limitation has other 
outlook. It is not truth, knowledge, alone God 
has to bestow. Treasures of beauty are in his 
gift. The perception of the beautiful and glad- 
ness in it he is ready to confer upon us with- 
out stint. These, like his own spirit, "he giveth 
not by measure. ' ' And yet how circumscribed 
is that Soul of Beauty which informs the uni- 
verse, in its ability to confer upon us! How 
much of beauty God has to bestow, — how sorely 
he is limited in his giving, by our narrowness, 
we little realize, till by the touch of some great 
interpreter, like Ruskin or Van Dyke our eyes 
are opened to the unnumbered beauties, which 
all our lives we have looked at, yet never seen. 

In his giving God is limited by our dullness 
of observation, and also by our slowness of 
heart, our undeveloped aesthetic nature. That 
one may enter into the treasures of music, there 
are needed the ear trained to catch the delicacies 
of tone-shading, and the soul cultivated to vi- 
brate to the inexpressible majesty of harmony. 

" Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God; 
But only they who see take off their shoes, 
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. ' ' 

And even more significant is the limitation 
imposed upon God, in the bestowal of his great- 
est gift — the richness of personal relationship 
with himself. It was this which constituted 
the great riches of the life of Jesus. It was 

[75] 



With Open Mind 

this with which he fain would have flooded the 
lives of his chosen friends: the knowledge of 
God; acquaintance with the Eternal Father. 
That he might help them to this he opened up 
to them the great depths of his own heart. He 
spoke of the great self-sacrifice he was himself 
to make in their behalf. He endeavored to dis- 
close the measureless lovingness in which this 
sacrifice was freely offered. And the noblest 
response he succeeded in eliciting was a petty 
contention among themselves as to which should 
have the foremost places in the kingdom. So 
men continually limit the Eternal Friend in 
the giving of that greatest of all gifts, which is 
our life, fellowship with himself. 

However ready any great personality may be 
to confer himself upon his brother men, a limit 
is set to his giving by the caliber of those who 
are to receive. The crowd wish to see him. 
They stare, listen and come away, having seen 
and heard nothing larger than themselves. The 
great mind can give its great thoughts only to 
the large, apprehensive intellect. The soul of 
beauty can impart its conceptions only to the 
perceptive, the truly aesthetic. The heart of 
great nobleness, of deep affection, can bestow 
itself only on the one who, in some measure, vi- 
brates to the same key. 

As already indicated, this limitation upon 
God's giving, is in part the result of immaturity 
and inexperience. If these were the sole cause, 
however, they would be in the way of taking 
care of themselves. The atrocious crime of be- 

[76] 



The Divine Limitations 

ing young, time speedily removes. Life, the 
great school-master, withholds from none those 
lessons of experience which open eyes, ears, 
heart. 

There are, however, other causes which limit 
God's ability to give to us, which are not thus 
self -corrective. For example, conceit, low con- 
tent and indolence. 

To the teachable mind, however undeveloped, 
all possibilities of knowledge lie open. The 
conceited spirit is hopeless. It can be taught 
nothing. In the phrase of Lord Bacon, "The 
kingdom of learning, like the kingdom of 
heaven, can be entered only by the spirit of the 
little child." The realm of beauty is locked 
to the artist satisfied with his own achievement. 
Upon the egotistic, the self-sufficient, the truly 
great soul can confer but little of the riches of 
its fellowship. 

So also the mind of low content can know but 
little, can appreciate but little of the richly 
beautiful; can possess nothing of noble great- 
ness. Upon the one who will not aspire, even 
the heavenly powers can bestow nothing. 

And yet again, he who would know must do. 
He who would have his possessions increased 
must use those he has. Expression is the meas- 
ure of impression, the psychologists tell us. 
Utter in act the truth you have received, if you 
would have your store of truth increased. Use 
the talent you have, or even it shall be forfeited. 
Give the beautiful conception form, or it shall 
fade away, and the very power of conceiving 

[77] 



With Open Mind 

the beautiful become atrophied. It is the prin- 
ciple involved in those words of Jesus: Take 
heed to that ye hear; do the truth you know; 
and to you that hear shall more be given. 

Unlike immaturity and inexperience these 
limitations upon God's power of bestowal, be it 
repeated, are not self-corrective. The lapse of 
time, of itself, has no tendency to remove them ; 
but rather to establish them more firmly. The 
lessons of experience may have some qualifying 
effect upon the self-sufficiency of early life ; but 
there are many whose conceit, like their follies, 
survive their youth, and who are self-sufficient 
as well as ignorant in spite of experience. And 
over low content and indolence, time and life's 
teaching have no power. If these limitations 
upon God's giving to us are to be removed we 
ourselves must remove them. We can cultivate 
the spirit that is teachable. We can spur our- 
selves to aspiration, till through our deep de- 
light in the large and beautiful the spur shall 
be no longer needful, and our awakened thirst 
shall be the security of continually enlarging 
gifts from God. We can do faithfully the things 
we know, and so make possible our larger know- 
ing and our larger possession of the things 
which as yet ' ' eye hath not seen nor ear heard 
neither have entered into the heart of man." 
But we alone can do this ; and before the bar- 
riers of our conceit, our low content and our in- 
dolence, if permitted to remain, the Giver of 
all good stands impotent to bestow. 

This truth of the divine limitation is of wide 

[78] 



The Divine Limitations 

application. It pertains to all we gather up 
under the term salvation. There are those who 
rely on the divine goodness to give salvation 
to men whatever their response to the call of 
God. But this is impossible. Salvation is the 
man come to his full self-realization, and put in 
possession of all that might be his own. It 
means this if it means anything. But this the 
Infinite himself may not confer. Salvation is in 
one aspect a gift ; as knowledge is a gift ; as the 
enjoyment of beauty is a gift; as friendship is 
a gift. But in another aspect, equally real, 
salvation is distinctly an achievement. It is to 
be had, if had at all, through the opening of 
oneself to receive it; through the stretching of 
one's capacity to appropriate it; through in- 
corporating it into oneself by doing the deeds of 
a Christly life. 

Set in this universe of marvelous richness, 
with its inexhaustible stores of truth to be 
known, of beauty to be preceived, of divine fel- 
lowship to be enjoyed; the word of the ancient 
philosopher gathers up the truth for each of us, 
"Man is the measure of all things.' 9 Though 
we live under the limitations of immaturity, yet 
for all who will, the limit moves. We shall 
never reach a point at which farther expansion 
is not possible ; nor one at which the riches of 
the universe will be exhausted. 

If any of us shall fail of the fullest possession 
of all richest good of which our being is capa- 
ble, the limitation will be nowhere but in our 
own aspirations and affections. 

[79] 



CHAPTER VI 
THE DIVINE CONSIDERATENESS 



CHAPTER VI 

The Divine Considerateness 

Isaiah 42: 3 — A bruised reed shall he not break and a dimly 
burning wick shall he not quench. 

T N the life of the people to whom these words 
** were spoken, reeds had important uses. 
Baskets, boats and mats were woven of reeds. 
What we call a cane, a walking-staff, was a cane 
indeed, a reed. A reed served the purpose of 
a yard stick. Pipes for conveying liquids were 
segments of reeds. A reed provided the musi- 
cian with his flute. 

It is the gatherer of reeds for these various 
uses who comes before us in the first picture of 
the prophet's declaration. Among the tall 
straight stems which he gathers by the river 
side is one which some creature has trodden 
upon. Bent to the ground, crushed, bruised, — 
it seems a poor worthless affair. Might it not 
as well be entirely broken off and done with? 
Here is one who says, "Not so. This bruised 
thing is not hopelessly injured. There is life in 
it still. Straighten it ; bind it up ; give it chance 
to recover, and it may yet become strong, 
straight and beautiful. ' ' 

The dimly burning, smoking wick of an orien- 
tal lamp — a strand of flax in a little vessel from 

[83] 



With Open Mind 

which the oil is exhausted — is not an attractive 
thing. It is, rather, altogether unpromising and 
offensive. "Out with it as soon as possible/ 9 
"But no," says another voice. "Do not ex- 
tinguish it because it is disagreeble. The smoke 
itself testifies to the presence of some fire. Pos- 
sibly it may be made to blaze up and give light 
again. Pour in oil that the feeble flickering 
may be quickened into flame.' ' So, says the 
prophet, will the coming messenger of Israel's 
God deal with the imperfect feeble goodnesses 
of men. 

It is a beautiful interpretation of the disposi- 
tion of God, in whom we live, toward us, the 
children of men, and of his treatment of our 
feeble, deformed beginnings of worthy attain- 
ment. Continually the eternal Father is on 
the watch for traces of the better life in us men. 
Where he finds these, — an effort, however halt- 
ing and vacillating, — an aspiration, however 
fluctuating and uncertain, — a purpose, however 
feeble and intermittent; he does not censure 
this, harshly treat it with severity because it is 
so little ; he does not view it in its f aultiness and 
reject it because of its defects. He rather re- 
joices that there is any beginning of worthiness 
which he may cherish and encourage, and with 
all patient tenderness he fosters this, that he 
may bring it to its possible perfection. 

Burbank, among his thousands of vegetable 
growths, is continually on the watch for prom- 
ising variations. The very least of these com- 
mands instant attention and unstinted care. 

[84] 



The Divine Consider at eness 

Light, moisture, fertilization of soil ; — whatever 
conditions are needful for this stranger's devel- 
opment are provided without hesitation, that 
latent possibilities may come to their realiza- 
tion in a spineless cactus, a seedless apple, a 
new improved fruit or vegetable. 

In his story of the Ascent of Man, Henry 
Drummond has traced the path by which the 
nobler unselfish spirit has come to be so in- 
fluential in the life of the world; with promise 
of being actually the overmastering influence 
in human society. In the earliest stages of 
life's history in the earth, the selfish spirit had 
the field undisputed. In the fierce struggle for 
existence, "Look out for number one," "Each 
for himself " was the law. Gradually another 
impulse emerges : struggle for the life of others ; 
risking of self for the sake of offspring. The 
social instinct begins to have play. In the herd, 
the swarm of bees, the colony of ants, the in- 
dividual forgets himself and labors for the com- 
mon good. Even among ferocious wild beasts 
this impulse has force. Kipling has reminded 
us that "the law of the wolf is the pack." Not 
each for himself, but each for all. At last in 
this slow upward movement toward the unsel- 
fish life, has come the human mother, the deep- 
est impulse of whose being is loving and giving. 

Over all this long upward movement through 
the countless ages, the Eternal One, our God, 
has watched, patient, considerate ; not breaking 
the bruised reed, nor extinguishing the dimly 
burning wick, but cherishing, cultivating, till 

[85] 



With Open Mind 

the feeble possibilities become nobly real. It 
is that same unwearying considerateness which 
has all our possibilities of personal worth in its 
keeping. 

Our first feeble impulse towards larger, 
better things, is of his implanting. But for him 
it would not be there at all. The language of 
the prayer-book is correct. From the over- 
watching, divine One "all holy desires, all good 
counsels and all just works do proceed." 

And tardy as may be the growth of the worth- 
ier life, distorted as may be its development by 
the pressure of ignoble propensity from within, 
or of the hampering conditions from without, 
still the bruised reed he will not break. Though 
we may be fully aware ourselves that the lamp 
burns dimly, uncertainly, and that in its feeble 
flickering there is more to condemn than to com- 
mend, he will not extinguish it in judgment, but 
will foster it in his fatherly care ; and not until 
we ourselves have deliberately quenched the 
smoking flax will that patient considerateness 
be exhausted. 

How the life of Jesus testified to all this and 
fulfilled the prophet's anticipation concerning 
the one who should sometime come and inter- 
pret God to the world ! 

Among the outcasts of society, publicans, sin- 
ners, those who had lost all hope for themselves, 
he went seeking the bruised reeds and the flick- 
ering lamps ; and these he kindled into the lights 
which have guided the world's civilization in its 
upward march of twenty centuries; these he 

[86] 



The Divine Consider at ene s s 

made the strong staffs — the men of character — 
upon whom every worthy cause might lean for 
support. 

Toward our feeble understandings, our child- 
ish conceptions we are warranted in believing 
this divine considerateness is exercised. And 
surely there is need of it. Lowell might well 
say, "I think God must be greatly amused with 
us. M How foolish the conceptions of the wisest 
must appear to the Eternal Mind. We look 
back to the scientific notions of the wise men of 
the past, their conceptions of the physical uni- 
verse and its ongoing, and smile, as we are 
justified in doing, at their childish f ancifulness. 
But it is probable that the present-day concep- 
tions of the foremost scientist would appear 
scarcely less childish if set in contrast with ab- 
solute reality. Upon those infantile reasonings 
of the distant past the Eternal Intelligence, we 
may be sure, did not look with scorn, for defec- 
tive, fanciful as they were, there was in them 
the germ which has unfolded into the more ac- 
curate knowledge of today. If anywhere in the 
realm of intelligence God might have been 
moved to break the bruised reed and quench the 
dimly burning wick, it surely would have been 
in connection with the thoughts men have en- 
tertained concerning himself. To what horri- 
ble, slanderous conceptions of the Eternal One 
the religions of the world bear witness. How 
men have wronged him, traduced him in their 
thoughts. And yet the Eternal Goodness has 
not rejected those whom we call the heathen be- 

[87] 



With Open Mind 

cause of this; but into their darkness has sent 
increasing light. That men thought of him at 
all was something; and in this something, un- 
worthy as it was, was a germ to be cultivated 
in patience, rather than to be crushed in judg- 
ment. 

And fortunate for us it may be that this same 
divine considerateness is over us all. We walk 
in the light of the Christian day; but we may 
little suspect how true it is of ourselves that we 
see as in a mirror, indistinctly. How the 
fatherly goodness of the Eternal has been ma- 
ligned sometimes by that which imagined itself 
to be Christian theology! The Apostle Paul 
was confident that he saw but in part, and that 
part so partial, that when the perfect should 
be revealed the part would be lost to view. To- 
ward our feeble, childish understanding of him 
God is considerate. If we will but let him, he 
will develop that flickering flame into something 
far more worthy of us and of him. 

Over the mixed motives by which we are in- 
fluenced more largely than we are aware, per- 
haps, the same considerateness is exercised. 
We smile at the generosity of the little child 
who presents us with its treasured possession 
in the evident expectation that it will be given 
back or will bring some larger gift in return. 
A largely qualified generosity it is indeed. Yet 
nothing could be more mistaken than to crush 
this bruised reed. Tinged with consideration 
of self as this impulse is, it involves a germ of 
spontaneous self-f orgetfulness which only needs 

[88] 



The Divine Consider at eness 

to be cultivated to shed its unsightliness, and 
blossom beautifully. 

When under some flash of revealing light we 
of older years experience how mixed and un- 
worthy are the motives which have influenced 
us, it is comfort to know that God is consider- 
ate, and that his disposition is not to quench the 
smoking flax because of its offensiveness, but 
to cherish it because of its possibilities of flame. 

Over our vacillating purposes, our seemingly 
ineffectual struggles after the better life, the 
same divine considerateness hovers. Again and 
again we determine to get the better of some un- 
worthy propensity, to break off some evil prac- 
tice ; and again and again we allow ourselves to 
be defeated. In our discouragement we are 
ready to throw up our hands in surrender. But 
when we are hopeless over our failure, God is 
not. In that last unsuccessful attempt you 
made to conquer the besetting sin, of the re- 
membrance of which you would gladly be rid, 
he sees a flickering flame. The very regret you 
feel, the humiliation in view of defeat, is a sign 
of life ; the revelation of unrealized possibilities. 
A bruised reed indeed, and yet one which the 
God in whom we live would fain bind up and 
foster into stately strength and beauty. As 
Browning has put it — 

" All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 
* * * * 

All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God. " 

[89] 



With Open Mind 

It is good for us to grasp this truth of the di- 
vine considerateness in all its realness. I take 
it there is no one of us who does not sorely need 
it at times if hope is not utterly to fail. In 
hours of sharp discrimination, when, through 
some revealing experience, we see ourselves as 
we really are, the best among us become aware 
that a bruised reed, a dimly burning lamp, is 
the most fitting symbol of our strength and 
worthiness. In the patient considerateness of 
our God is our only ground for encouragement. 

And that considerate forbearance is not only 
comfort. It surely ought to be mighty incentive 
and warrant for great expectation. If he still 
believes in us, shall we not be spurred to make 
sure that his confidence is not disappointed? If 
he will but stay with us, we surely must win in 
the end. 

And the inference from God's considerate- 
ness toward ourselves — what is it but uncon- 
querable hopefulness for others, even the most 
unpromising? Who shall say of any man that 
he is beyond hope? Among all whom we have 
known, what one was there whose wick did not 
give forth some feeble flame ? Which of us ever 
knew any person who was absolutely and ut- 
terly bad? It was the unpromising pagan cen- 
turion of whom Jesus could say, "I have not 
found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ' ' It was 
the unpromising Samaritan leper who alone of 
all the ten healed returned to give thanks to his 
benefactor. It was the unpromising publican — 
the despised tax gatherer of Jericho, who re- 

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The Divine C on sider at e ne s s 

sponded to the appeal to the better life with the 
gift of half of his property to the poor and 
fourfold restoration of all unfair exactions. It 
was the unpromising woman of the street who 
showed herself nearer to the heart of God than 
the reputable, self-satisfied Pharisee. The in- 
spiration of the Salvation Army has been its 
invincible conviction that the very lowest and 
worst of men is salvable ; that no one is beyond 
hope. And through the life-giving touch of 
that triumphant confidence, from the lowest 
depths of degradation and sin have come saints 
of God, to take their place among the noblest 
spirits of this generation. 

For this unwearying divine considerateness, 
blessed be God! Comfort in our hours of dis- 
couragement, incentive to all patient endeavor, 
pledge of our ultimate attainment, guaranty of 
hope and effort for the least promising of the 
children of men. 



[91] 



CHAPTER Vn 
LIGHT FOR THE RIGHTEOUS 



CHAPTEE VII 

Light foe the Righteous 

Psalms 97: 11 — Light is sown for the righteous and glad- 
ness for the upright in heart. 

T> Y whom these words were written we have 
-"-* no certain knowledge ; but of this, at least, 
we are certain, that he had the soul of a poet as 
well as of a seer. He was inspired not alone in 
the vision of truth, but in the expression of 
truth as well; he was gifted with the poet's art 
of saying things. 

And what an art it is. The ability so to em- 
body a truth in words that these shall not only 
affirm the proposition to be enunciated, but 
shall also suggest confirmation or illustration 
of the truth declared. It is said of Daniel "Web- 
ster that he had the ability so to state a propo- 
sition that the simple statement was an 
argument in its support. That the author of 
this Ninety-seventh Psalm was a master in this 
witchery of words, needs no other attestation 
than this declaration: " Light is sown for the 
righteous and gladness for the upright in 
heart." 

What these words directly affirm is the cer- 
tain issue of good which awaits the man of pure 
heart and upright life. But by implication they 

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With Open Mind 

teach far more than this. They indicate the 
method by which this result is brought about. 
They suggest the interpretation to be put upon 
possible occurrences which, at the time, may 
seem to be inconsistent with the principle 
stated. The very phraseology, by virtue of the 
analogies it suggests, is such as to encourage 
ready and confident acceptance of the proposi- 
tion affirmed. 

Light is sown for the righteous. Seed has 
been dropped. It is already in the soil, under 
the operation of forces adapted to bring to ma- 
turity the harvest indicated. 

Both the direct affirmation and the side 
thoughts which spring from it are full of pre- 
cious meaning. 

First, the declaration itself. Light is sown 
for the righteous. Blessings of mind and heart 
are surely in store for the upright, light and 
gladness. Light which illumines, makes clear 
our way; light, which cheers; gladness, the 
heart's life. 

Second, the ground of confident assurance 
that this is so, suggested by the pregnant 
phraseology. There can be no failure, for the 
seed is sown. The issue, that is to say, is in 
the very nature of things. It comes about in no 
haphazard and uncertain way ; by no arbitrary 
interjection of energy from without. On the 
contrary it is yoked up with the great order of 
the universe. The inherent constitution of 
things is such as to bring this about normally, 
inevitably, even as the harvest follows the sow- 

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Light for the Righteous 

ing. It takes place as automatically, if you 
choose so to express it, as fire burns or stones 
fall. 

Or, to phrase it otherwise, in these words the 
poet affirms the great fundamental truth, that 
this universe we inhabit is a moral universe, in 
which consequents follow from their antecedents 
as inevitably as in the realm of physical force ; 
and in which light and gladness are inseparably 
yoked to righteous living. 

Upon this assertion of the poet the undeviat- 
ing experience of the generations has set its 
positive confirmation. Of the light which illu- 
mines, this is true; the light of the mind in 
which we are enabled to see things as they are, 
to perceive spiritual verities and to adjust our- 
selves to them. Nothing is better established 
than the dependence of the intellectual upon the 
moral; the dependence of clear seeing upon 
right living. Unerring as gravity is that law 
of the spirit by which it comes about that, "the 
path of the righteous is as the dawning light, 
which shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." While, "the way of the wicked is as 
darkness. They know not at what they stum- 
ble." 

It was no arbitrary, exceptional provision 
which Jesus announced in the words — "He that 
folio we th me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life. ' ' It was instead the 
undeviating law of spiritual perception. Over 
and over again, and in varying form he stated 
it. "Take heed to that ye hear, and to you that 

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With Open Mind 

hear shall more be given.' ' Do the truth you 
know, if you would hope for increasing knowl- 
edge. "If any man is willing to do his will, he 
shall know." The unvarying experience of 
nineteen centuries is confirmation of this great 
truth, which holds front rank among the prin- 
ciples of modern psychology. The pure in 
heart do see God. To the impure and unright- 
eous, the vision of the spiritual and eternal is 
impossible. It is the fact that he that doeth 
truth is not only willing to conre to the light, but 
that he does come to the light. For the right- 
eous soul many perplexities are resolved. He 
attains the point of view from which the puz- 
zling is made plain. As the maze of cycles and 
epicycles by which the ptolemaic astronomy at- 
tempted to explain the movements of the heav- 
enly bodies, is reduced to simplicity when one 
takes the sun and not the earth as the center and 
point of observation, so by yielding oneself to 
the leadings of righteousness, a person comes 
to be at one with God; he looks through God's 
eyes. Things are seen in their consistent sim- 
plicity. The complicated becomes — tends to 
become — clear. 

For the righteous also is sown that other 
light which cheers, and with the same undeviat- 
ing certainty, by virtue of the very nature of 
things, the harvest is sure to follow. "Surely 
the light is sweet," says the writer of Ecclesi- 
astes, "and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to 
behold the sun." How our emotional nature 
responds to the glory of the light which floods 

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Light for the Righteous 

the outer world. After a period of gloom, a 
day of sunshine sets our hearts bubbling with 
joy. Life is indeed worth living. Hopefulness 
lifts us as on mighty wings. No undertaking 
seems too difficult to be grappled with. The 
light of good fellowship is on all faces, good will 
is in all hearts. 

A far mightier, more satisfying cheer is the 
gift of that light which irradiates the soul's in- 
ner sky. "Many there be," says the psalmist, 
"that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, 
lift thou up the lights of thy countenance upon 
us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more 
than they have when their corn and their wine 
are increased." There is no gloom like that 
of estrangement from God ; no burden like that 
of conscious unrighteousness. Nothing else has 
such power to drive men to despair. How 
many have sought escape from its tortures by 
the taking of their own lives. How many others 
have been driven to make acknowledgment of 
unsuspected guilt, and gladly to accept the pen- 
alty of evil deeds, in order to escape the lash of 
that self-condemnation which pursued them and 
would give them no peace. 

On the other hand, there is no joy like his who 
lives in the light of God's countenance, in the 
sense of God's approval. Privation, calamity, 
distress, the protean shapes of outward advers- 
ity, are powerless to darken that inner sky in 
which this light still shines. Hear the ring of 
unconquerable optimism in the exultant words 
of that prophet of the olden time : ' ' Though the 

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With Open Mind 

fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be 
in the vines ; the labor of the olive shall fail and 
the fields shall yield no food ; the flock shall be 
cut off from the fold and there shall be no herd 
in the stalls; yet will I rejoice in the Lord. I 
will joy in the God of my salvation. ' ' 

In this conception of light as the light which 
cheers, it is of course identical with the gladness 
promised in the second half of the text to the 
upright in heart. 

And this light too is "sown." Its dawning 
is sure. It arises in the nature of the case. Not 
through the operation of impersonal necessity ; 
because this light pertains wholly to the realm 
of personality. It springs out of the accord of 
man's spirit with the spirit of God. It is radi- 
ance born of the divine friendship. Yet its 
coming is assured in the very constitution of 
things. To the upright in heart it cannot fail. 
Because the God who is at the heart of the uni- 
verse is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, your Father and mine, who makes the 
sun of his outer world to rise upon the evil 
and upon the good, seeking out the dark places 
that he may illumine them with radiance, and 
the light of whose love goes out to find res- 
ponsive hearts and to bring them into the joy 
of conscious fellowship with himself. For every 
one of upright heart that fellowship is in 
waiting. 

By the very laws of personal relationship it 
is only for the upright in heart that this glad- 
ness is possible. By the same laws, to the up- 

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Light for the Righteous 

right in heart it is assured. As harvests follow 
seed sowing, by causal connection, so infalli- 
bly, by the very constitution of the universe, 
light and gladness are in store for the righteous. 

In keeping with this analogy of the seed and 
the harvest also, is a fact of human experience 
which often occasions sore perplexity; which 
has led many a heart to question whether good- 
ness is really at the center of the universe; 
whether this expectation of any desirable out- 
come for the upright in heart is all a delusion. 
It is the fact that the fruit of light and gladness 
is often very slow in appearing; to our vision 
does not appear at all. 

But harvests are the result of growth and 
take time. Harvests are the result of vicissitude, 
not of unbroken sunshine. Cold and heat, wet 
and dry, calm and storm, all have their part in 
maturing them. Occurrences which might well 
enough seem hostile, even fatal, are really con- 
tributory to best results. Upon the grain sown 
in autumn snows will fall; frosts will bite the 
tender blade; winter will seem to be set upon 
the nullification of the farmer's toil. But in 
spite of all these — as the result of them, indeed, 
— the crop will be gathered in. 

True it is, that across the path of the upright 
in heart the problem of suffering casts its dark 
shadow. And when the heart is torn and bleed- 
ing over the loss of one more precious than life 
itself, whose presence seemed to be all that 
made life worth living ; when crushing disaster 
falls upon one and upon those far dearer than 

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With Open Mind 

himself, and poverty, humiliation and privation 
stare them in the face; when one suffers irre- 
parable wrongs at the hands of others, the ques- 
tion whether there is a good God who knows and 
cares ; whether there is any righteous order of 
things which brings blessing to the upright in 
heart, very naturally forces itself upon one. 
With this problem of suffering the heart of men 
in all ages has struggled. 

It is interesting and notable that in early 
Jewish thought a mistaken attempt to solve the 
problem resulted from the too unqualified ac- 
ceptance of the very principle of the text. So 
certain were these early Hebrew thinkers that 
blessing would follow righteousness, that they 
regarded suffering, calamity, as the conclusive 
evidence and consequence of evil deeds. It was 
at this point that Job fought out the battle with 
his friends. Job must have been a great sinner 
to have suffered so sorely, was their contention. 
This inference he met with blank denial, and 
God justified him in his position. 

The man of Uz found no clear, comprehensive 
and sufficient solution of the problem of suffer- 
ing. The conclusion he reaches is that the prob- 
lem is too vast and complicated for complete so- 
lution in the light of present knowledge. Even 
this present mundane life is too large, many- 
sided, kaleidoscopic for our comprehension, and 
this is but a part. Existence has reach beyond 
the present, and only in the light of the whole 
can we hope for the resolving of all perplexities. 
But at the same time, for Job as well as for our- 

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Light for the Righteous 

selves, certain truths do emerge, which throw 
some light upon the dark problem, and are in 
keeping with our analogy of the seed and its 
harvest. 

First is the fact, well-attested, that suffering 
has often a disciplinary, an educational value. 
Too constant temporal prosperity is not always 
conducive to our attaining to the true light for 
the soul. On the contrary, when external sun- 
shine is unbroken, it is too easy for us to be 
preoccupied with its glare and so to lose the 
vision of the light which is spiritual and eternal. 

As we walk abroad under the noonday sun 
and gaze into the depths of the azure, we see 
no stars there. It is for us as if there were 
none. But as we descend into some shaft pene- 
trating to the treasures that lie hid away in the 
earth's secret chambers, and turn to look back 
whence we came, the stars surprise our vision, 
burning at midday with calm and quenchless 
splendor. So, often, by sinking out of the beams 
of this world's brightness we sink into the fade- 
less radiance of the world unseen. Sorrow and 
disapointment have their educative value. A 
diamond is not polished with soap, oil or even 
emery stone. Only by grinding it with its own 
dust are its royal beauties disclosed. In no 
way but by fierce, fiery fermentation are the im- 
purities cast out and the wine made rich and 
mellow. We too need the grinding, the crush- 
ing, the fierce agitation, if our best possibilities 
— that in us which is most worthy to endure — 
is to be brought to light. 

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With Open Mind 

The prophet sees God sitting as a refiner and 
purifier of silver. Not heartlessly does he stir 
the fires beneath the crucible. Carefully, ten- 
derly he watches the molten metal, waiting for 
the moment when he shall be able to see his own 
image reflected in it; (the ideal he has for us 
attained) ; and then the flames are quenched. 

In this educative effect of sorrow and trouble 
we may perhaps find clue also, in part at least, 
to the explanation of the differences of human 
experience. There are some who lead lives of 
almost unruffled prosperity. Others are the 
very children of calamity. And these differ- 
ences are by no means to be accounted for on 
the basis of personal worthiness. The lives 
most nobly deserving are often lived under the 
deepest shadows. 

It is true, however, that differences in per- 
sonality — differences both of need and of pos- 
sibility — may open the way for differences in 
experience. Among the multitudes of human 
beings there are no duplicates, either in consti- 
tutional make-up or in capability. Experiences 
adapted, needed, to bring out the best in one 
life might not have that effect upon another. 
The tremendous strain which is necessary to 
bring the racer to its perfection, would kill the 
dray-horse. 

In the discipline of life sore trial may quite 
as well be the experience of large as of little 
worth; not because of misdeeds which call for 
chastisement, but because of great capabilities 
to be realized. Because of the very possibilities 

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Light for the Righteous 

of elect souls it may be that the discipline of 
suffering is appointed them. The writer of the 
epistle to the Hebrews sees Jesus himself made 
perfect through suffering. 

Very interesting is the fact that before the 
Old Testament writings were completed Jewish 
thought had come around to this position, which 
is the very opposite of that of Job's friends. 
To them calamity was evidence of sinfulness. 
To the later writers suffering was the token of 
divine favor. " Whom the Lord loveth he chast- 
eneth, even as a father the son in whom he de- 
lighteth." 

So interpreted the sorrows of life cast no 
doubt upon the outcome for the upright in 
heart. The harvest of light and gladness stands 
in no jeopardy. It simply waits upon the opera- 
tion of those influences which bring it to per- 
fection. 

Essentially the same is to be said concerning 
another form of suffering, which is the peculiar 
experience of the upright in heart : that vicari- 
ous suffering, in the bearing of which Jesus far 
transcends all others, and which, "for the joy 
that was set before him" he gladly took upon 
himself. No man liveth to himself. Whether 
we will or not we are inseparably bound to one 
another. We rise or fall together. As by the 
sin of one many are made to suffer, so through 
the suffering of one the sorrows of the many are 
lightened. But for the patient burden-bearing 
of the great heart of Abraham Lincoln, from 
which his martyr death was really a release, lib- 

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With Open Mind 

erty could not have come to the black man or 
unity to a divided nation. All through our hu- 
man life runs this strain of the vicarious. 
Through the suffering of the one blessing is 
made possible for the many. Few are the wor- 
thy lives that have not some share in this ex- 
perience. 

And suffering of this kind, however severe, 
casts no doubt upon the affirmation of the fact 
that light is sown for the righteous. It is the 
very means by which the harvest of light and 
gladness is assured. There is no joy like the 
joy of sacrificial service. It is the joy of the 
patriot that through the laying down of his 
own life his country may live. It is the eternal 
joy of our Lord. In the ultimate good of all, 
the upright in heart finds tenfold compensation 
for all the suffering on his part through which 
that good was secured. 

In the experience of Sir Walter Scott, as 
Lockhart has described it, is apt illustration 
of what I am trying to say. In the words of the 
biographer, "The tragic sorrows that over- 
whelmed him were not the mere reversal of 
the wheel of fortune; but gifts from the very 
hand of the Father, to purify a noble soul from 
the dross that mingled with it ; to give a great 
man the oportunity of living in a way that 
should furnish an eternal and imperishable ex- 
ample. ' 7 

So in the disciplinary and in the vicarious as- 
pects of the suffering of the righteous, we find 
what is analogous to those climatic conditions 

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Light for the Righteous 

which seem to threaten the life of the growing 
grain, while in reality they are making the har- 
vest sure. They constitute no adequate solu- 
tion of the whole mystery of suffering, indeed. 
That will be impossible until human existence 
is seen in its full reach. But they warrant the 
confident faith that as these dark aspects of life 
have their luminous side, so the full harvest of 
the upright heart, when at length it is gathered, 
shall prove to be light, and only light. 

But far more stable than all such inferences 
is the ultimate basis of our confidence that for 
the righteous the issue is sure. Its certain 
ground is God. In this issue his own character 
is at stake. He has made us to believe that 
goodness shall be vindicated; that the upright 
in heart shall not be the object of derision. He 
will not fail to keep his word with us. That 
inner impulse, which constrains us to faithful- 
ness, is begotten of him, the Father of our 
spirits; it is the offspring of that unwavering 
faithfulness of the Eternal, "with whom can 
be no variation neither shadow that is cast 
by turning." Fidelity to the righteous cause, 
faithfulness to the upright in heart is of the 
very essence of his being. "He cannot deny 
himself." In this confidence, out of the im- 
penetrable darkness Job was able to make his 
affirmation, "Though he slay me, yet will 
I trust in him," and ultimately to find his 
faith vindicated. So out of a heart wrung 
by many sorrows Whittier could write the 
words — 

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With Open Mind 

" Yet, in the maddening maze of things, 
And tossed by storm and flood, 
To one fixed trust my spirit clings; 
I know that God is good ! ' ' 

In God himself is the security that the har- 
vest of light shall not fail the upright in heart, 
— the light which illumines; the light which 
cheers ; the light of ever clearer vision ; the light 
of ever deeper gladness. And if at any time the 
light delays its coming, if we wait long for it 
and the clouds still overhang, let there be no 
disheartenment. Let it be remembered, "the 
light is sown. ' ' Though the snows of winter be 
deep upon the fields where the seed has been 
scattered; yet the grain is there, and not far 
hence the springtime when this shall be mani- 
fest. 

The word of the Eternal is pledged. Adver- 
sity shall not prevail. The darkness shall have 
an end. "Then shall thy light break forth as 
the morning and thine health shall spring forth 
speedily; then shall thy light rise in darkness 
and thine obscurity be as the noonday." "For 
the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the 
days of thy mourning shall be ended. ' ' 



[108] 



CHAPTER VIII 
EARTH HELPED THE WOMAN 



CHAPTER VIII 

Eaeth Helped the Woman 

Rev. 12: 16 — And the earth helped the woman. 

T N that vision of the seer, of whose description 
-*■ these words are a part, there appeared a 
woman arrayed with the sun, the moon under 
her feet, upon her head a crown of stars, about 
to be delivered of a son ; menacing her a great 
red dragon, intent to seize and devour the child 
that should be born. Away from the jaws of the 
dragon the new-born babe was caught up to 
God, and the woman fled away into the wilder- 
ness. The dragon, infuriated at the loss of his 
prey, poured out of his mouth a deluge of water 
to submerge the woman ; but the earth, opening 
its mouth and swallowing up the river, she es- 
caped. 

" The earth helped the woman." In these 
words of the apocalyptic seer there is imbedded 
a great inspiring truth. In the vision portrayed 
before us we are transplanted to the realm of 
symbolism. In order to the apprehension of 
the truth embodied in the text, three symbols 
may perhaps call for some slight elucidation; 
the woman, the dragon, the earth. 

Interpreted strictly, within the limits of the 
seer's vision, the woman symbolizes the Jewish 

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With Open Mind 

church, from which was born the child the Sa- 
vior of the world. But the symbol is capable 
of far wider application than this. From the 
first, Christian imterpreters have seen in the 
woman the emblem of the church of Christ, and 
in her persecution the portrayal of the vicissi- 
tudes through which the Kingdom of Jesus has 
been called to pass. Are we not warranted in 
giving even wider interpretation to the figure 
and seeing in the woman the emblem of any or- 
ganization, whatever it be, in which reside and 
through which operate those forces and influ- 
ences whereby God is redeeming his world? Se- 
curing to the spiritual its rightful dominance 
in the life of our race? So broadly interpreted 
the woman becomes the symbol of the spiritual 
forces working for the redemption of the world. 

The dragon represents the forces in antago- 
nism to these. The symbol is most fitting; it is 
the incarnation of animalism. It typifies our 
legacy from * ' the monsters of the elder prime ; 9 9 
our animal inheritance. It aptly symbolizes 
also that satanic self-will, pride, greed, hate, 
which, rooted in our animal constitution, lift 
themselves up to antagonize and defeat the en- 
nobling, redeeming forces of the spiritual. In 
that antagonism the dragon waits to devour at 
its birth whatever is of a nature to promote the 
sway of the higher life: the life with God. 
Thwarted in this purpose it pours forth its 
floods of animosity to pursue and engulf the 
new born higher life of man. 

The earth is the emblem of nature, in its wide 
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Earth Helped the Woman 

scope ; the total order of the universe ; compris- 
ing not alone the material worlds and potencies, 
but man in the entire range of his constitution, 
together with those forces, which, working 
through man and society, give movement and 
shape to history. 

So interpreting this symbolism we are able 
to translate the text. For the words ' ' The earth 
helped the woman," we may read, "In the 
struggle of the spiritual with its foes, the trend 
of the universe is on the side of the spiritual. ' ' 

This transient incident in the drama of the 
Apocalypse, is the proclamation of an eternal 
truth. Always the unchanging order of the 
universe promotes the spiritual. This has not 
been a commonly accepted, generally appre- 
ciated truth. It does not accord with the con- 
ception most prevalent in Christian circles dur- 
ing the post-Reformation era. 

In the experience of us all the declaration 
of the apostle Paul has found verification : 
"The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the 
spirit against the flesh ; and these are contrary 
the one to the other; that ye may not do the 
things that ye would." This subjective experi- 
ence we have translated into the affirmation of 
an eternal, essential dualism in the constitution 
of the universe. Under the influence of the 
Platonic philosophy we have accepted the view 
that the material is essentially bad; that the 
trend of the physical universe is antagonistic 
to the spiritual life ; that man is normally unre- 
ligious; the spiritual life abnormal to him; — 

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With Open Mind 

to be implanted and established, if at all, by the 
irruption of some foreign power into the order 
of nature, to overcome it and hold it in subjec- 
tion; the spiritual life an alien, to be colonized 
and cultivated in the mundane only by the over- 
mastering of the normal order of the universe. 
This has been the too generally accepted con- 
ception. 

A view somewhat less extreme which has had 
something of currency is, that at best the order 
of the physical universe is indifferent to the 
spiritual; that it merely affords an avenue in 
which the struggle between the spiritual and its 
antagonists may be carried on. 

With the deepening sense of the immanence 
of God, this dualistic conception is passing. We 
are awakening to the realization that the uni- 
verse is a unity; that it has a single ultimate 
end, to which, from the beginning and in all de- 
partments, everything conspires. The thought 
of our time is increasingly in mood to receive 
the intimation of the text; that the real trend 
of the universe, at whatever stage of its un- 
folding, is towards the spiritual. "The earth 
helps the woman. ' ' In the struggle of the spir- 
itual with its antagonists, whether the animal 
or the satanic, the trend of the universe is 
promotive of the spiritual. 

In recent years the conflict which the seer of 
the Apocalypse depicts has been on, with em- 
phasis. Out of the mouth of the dragon there 
has poured forth a flood to overwhelm and ex- 
terminate the woman. A flood of words from 

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Earth Helped the Woman 

the lips of a materialistic philosophy; from 
atheism, arrogating to itself the name of 
science. A torrent of literature ; the emanation 
from "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the 
eye and the pride of life, ' ' gifted with all beauty 
of expression and the fascination of dramatic 
power, but too largely sensual, skeptical, scorn- 
ful. And supplementing these there has poured 
in upon our time a flood of corruption through 
the medium of an art, whose voluptuous beauty 
was the vehicle for bewildering, enticing appeal 
to the lowest. Through all these media the as- 
sault in these recent days, of the dragon upon 
the woman has been deadly and persistent. 

For those of higher vision and pure heart, 
the days have been days of solicitude. That 
solicitude is by no means wholly past; but to 
all those who have the higher good of the world 
at heart there are being uttered messages of 
comfort and confidence. The word of the seer 
is finding verification. "The earth helped the 
woman. ' ' 

The issue is not dubious. However fierce may 
be the assaults of evil, they shall not be finally 
successful. The eternal trend of the universe 
makes the outcome sure. From various quar- 
ters confirmation of this truth is transpiring in 
this day: from that which is coming to light 
concerning the constitution of the material uni- 
verse; from the moral trend manifest in the 
order of things; from the constitutional needs 
and tendencies of the human spirit; from the 
movement of history. 

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With Open Mind 

First, the study of the material world, the in- 
vestigation of the ultimate constitution of the 
physical universe, is affording evidence that by 
nature, "the earth helps the woman." Through 
the deeper understanding of the realm of mat- 
ter and force there is emerging confirmation of 
the reality and preeminence of the spiritual. A 
significant change from conditions of the recent 
past. A quarter of a century since it was 
loudly proclaimed that in the material universe 
there was involved the negation of the spiritual. 
"Kraft und Staff " — force and matter were all; 
adequate to account for all; the denial and ex- 
clusion of any other possibility. 

But, pushing their investigations further into 
the material, the physicists have seemed to come 
through upon another side, upon which it seems 
to be strongly suggested that the bases of the 
material itself must be sought in the spiritual. 
In ultimate analysis, force, energy can be ac- 
counted for only as of spiritual origin ; it is the 
expression of a will. Matter finds explanation 
as a form of force ; so that in origin it, too, is 
spiritual. 

Furthermore, in a degree wholly unprece- 
dented, undreamed of, the forces of the physi- 
cal universe are yielding themselves as the will- 
ing instruments of the spiritual in man. Heat, 
light, gravity, electricity, reveal themselves as 
strangely adapted to do man's bidding; and in 
the rendering of this service to promote his 
larger, richer attainment in the life of the spirit- 
So in origin, in use, in end, the physical uni- 

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Earth Helped the Woman 

verse is finding its interpretation in the spirit- 
ual. Only by reference to the spiritual is it able 
to give account of itself. 

Advancing now a step, — in the story of the 
ascent of life, we find proclamation that the 
trend of the universe is toward the spiritual. 
The evolution of the forms of life has been not 
mere change, but progress; movement from 
lower to higher. In all this upward movement, 
moreover, there is suggested and impressed the 
conception of prearrangement ; of operation ac- 
cording to plan. At the beginning and through 
all the ascending stages of development there is 
indication of superintending intelligence. 

Furthermore in this upward movement, even 
within the ranges of what we call the animal 
world, there is involved the ever larger and 
larger inclusion of the spiritual. There is con- 
stantly increasing emergence of the elements of 
the spiritual, in the successive forms of life, the 
ant, the bee, the bird, till in the higher orders 
of the animal creation, like the horse and dog, 
we find traces of an intelligence and a moral 
sense worthy to be spoken of as akin to those of 
man. The whole trend of evolution is to the 
steadily increasing inclusion and expression of 
the spiritual in the realm of life. 

The efficient causes of the material universe 
are spiritual. These alone can account for it. 
The final cause of the material universe, the end 
for which it exists, is spiritual : w£.,the bringing 
into existence of spiritual beings, and the pro- 
viding for them of an arena for their higher and 

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With Open Mind 

higher development. Before the mind of one 
who thoughtfully observes the movement of the 
outer world there rises the vision of a great 
cycle, in which is epitomized the story of the 
universe. From the spiritual, God, the universe 
has proceeded. In the successive forms of life 
media have been provided for the ever fuller ex- 
pression of the spiritual, until at length in the 
spirit of man the spirit of God is truly imaged, 
and in the aspirations of the devout soul the 
spirit returns unto God its source. 

A little since, the constitution of the material 
universe was loudly heralded as the denial of 
God and of all things spiritual. Today such 
titles as ' ' Through Nature to God ; ' 9 ' i Through 
Science to Faith,' ' are index of the real move- 
ment. In contrast with that boast of the spirit 
of denial hear these recent words of Sir Oliver 
Lodge, one of England's most eminent scien- 
tists: "We are coming to recognize that * * 
the extensive foundation of truth now being 
laid by scientific workers will ultimately sup- 
port a gorgeous building of aesthetic feeling and 
religious faith. ' ' Increasingly and with marked 
rapidity the truth is emerging that only by ref- 
erence to the spiritual can the physical universe 
give account of itself, either as regards origin 
or end. The very earth is constituted to help, 
does help the woman. 

Second, in the conspicuously moral character 
of the order of the universe, its promotion of 
moral ends, the earth helps the woman. The 
trend of the nature of things is to foster and 

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Earth Helped the Woman 

conserve the moral, and to eliminate the non- 
moral. 

In the succession of the forms of life, not 
only have higher and yet higher orders of in- 
telligence appeared. Accompanying this evolu- 
tion there has been the more and more positive 
exhibition of those traits which constitute the 
admirable in character. Altogether embryonic, 
if you please, even in the highest orders of the 
animal world, has been this foreshadowing of 
what was to be noble character in man. Yet the 
trend of nature, even among these lower orders, 
has been to subordinate the individualistic to 
the communal, the selfish to the altruistic — as in 
the life of ant and bee. And at length in that 
evolution of "the mother," which Henry Drum- 
mond has so exquisitely sketched, the order of 
the universe has made unambiguous affirmation 
of what has been its intent from the first. 

Even on those planes of life, which antedate 
and are of lower level than human history, the 
manifest trend of the universe is to promote the 
moral and to subordinate the non-moral. 

Within the range of human history, nothing 
is more familiar, nothing more indisputable 
than that by the very constitution of things, 
evil is short lived; that it carries the seeds of 
its extermination within itself. Never was it 
more manifest than today, that "he that pur- 
sueth evil pursueth it to his own death;" that, 
"the face of the Lord is against them that do 
evil, even to cut off the remembrance of them 
from the earth." So true is it that even on 

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With Open Mind 

what we may call its lower levels, in the region 
of the impersonal, the normal trend of the uni- 
verse is to foster that which is spiritual. 

Third, we find equal assurance of this truth 
when we turn our attention to the constitution 
of the human spirit. For it, too, is included in 
the order of the universe. Nothing is more 
firmly established than that man is inveterately, 
ineradicably religious. The deepest craving of 
his being is his insatiable hunger for God. 
Whether consciously or unconsciously — the 
deepest cry of every human spirit is, " ! that 
I knew where I might find him. ' ' Though he be 
but "an infant crying in the night, an infant 
crying for the light and with no language but a 
cry;" though he know as little as the infant 
what his real need is, the need of the infant is 
its mother, and the need of the man is God. 

Again, no fact concerning man is more in- 
disputable than that it is in finding God, man 
finds himself; comes to his best in intellect, in 
his affectional nature; in purpose and charac- 
ter; in the rounded worth and richness of his 
life. For this he was made. In this the order of 
the universe as it is expressed through him at- 
tains its end. 

Of the same intent are those manifold influ- 
ences which impinge upon the spirit of man and 
move it towards God, its end. The rising 
before us of those ideals of beauty and worth 
which come to us we know not whence ; the well- 
ing up, from the unplumbed depths of our souls, 
of those divine impulsions which set us upon the 

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Earth Helped the Woman 

pursuit of the high and noble ; the spur of our 
moral nature as it rings through our souls its 
imperative " ought;" all these are the most fa- 
miliar facts of our experience. And from the 
outer world, from 

" the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean and the living air, 
And the blue sky, " 

strange mystic voices are borne in upon our 
souls, the call of the deep without to the deep 
within, summoning us to find our life in God. 

So most mightily through the constitution of 
our spirits the great order of God's universe 
helps the woman. 

Fourth, yet once again in the great ground 
swell which gives movement and direction to hu- 
man history, "the earth helps the woman;" the 
order of the universe promotes spiritual ends. 
The trend of the ages has been steadily up- 
ward. As in the early stages of the world's 
existence, previous to man, there was steady 
ascent among the forms of life, till the spir- 
itual came to its birth in man, the image of 
God; so since that time, on the plane of hu- 
man history there has been untiring progress 
toward the securing of the larger prevalence 
and the supremacy of the spiritual in the life 
of the world. That is the story of the historic 
ages, upward. 

Not without seeming recedence of the tide at 
times, as the floods of the unillumined have 
poured their blackness over regions where the 
light was shining; yet in the sequel the re- 

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With Open Mind 

cedence has been seen to be only seeming. 
Through the darkness has broken the light with 
a greater brilliancy and a wider dispersion. 

The trend of history is upward to the ever 
increasing extension and to the enthronement of 
the spiritual in the life of the world. Contin- 
ually the movement of the world's life is carry- 
ing us far beyond the intent of the actors in 
affairs. Men, nations, pursue their little, selfish 
aims ; God uses them for the accomplishment of 
his great ends. We polish our fragments of 
stone. He builds them into his great mosaic. 

Was it a grasping, unscrupulous imperialism, 
as some conceived, which placed us in the Phil- 
ippines ? or, as others believed, was it the result 
of the unselfish desire to share with others the 
benefits of our civilization that the United 
States unexpectedly found itself a most potent 
influence in the movements of the far East? 
Whichever it was, to the amazement of us all, 
this relation of the United States to world poli- 
tics suddenly came into existence ; with the sig- 
nificant result that the conspicuous humanizing 
influence in the bitter contentions of eastern 
Asia is American diplomacy. 

Among all the signal movements of our time, 
what is more notable than the awakening of the 
social consciousness and the mighty trend to- 
ward mutualism, — the subordination of the in- 
dividual to the common good ; the incorporation 
of the spirit of Jesus in the social and indus- 
trial life of the world? A movement fitly char- 
acterized as "glacial" in the resistlessness of 

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Earth Helped the Woman 

its onward push; as cosmic in consideration of 
the forces by which it is impelled. Underneath 
and behind it is revealed a purpose far more 
mighty than human intent ; it moves on with an 
energy vastly transcending the strength of men 
individually or in the multitude. Like that 
mighty tidal impulse which drove the deluge of 
the barbarians over the boundaries of north- 
eastern Asia and across the plains of Europe, 
men conspire with it in pursuit of their own ad- 
vantage, or attempt to resist it in defence of 
threatened prerogative; but with the steady 
trend of the forces which are elemental it moves 
majestically on, till the prophecy of its absolute 
triumph in the betterment of human conditions 
and of its universal sway in the relations of so- 
ciety ceases to be prediction, and becomes sim- 
ply the reading of the future in the light of 
forces already operative. 

Very notably the trend of current events is to 
the reaffirmation, with a positiveness hitherto 
unknown, of the truth of Providential control 
in human history. Not the Providence which 
consists in the occasional irruption of powers 
outside the order of the universe for the correc- 
tion or emendation of the natural and the en- 
couragement of the spiritual ; but a Providence 
which is the persistent unflagging energizing 
in and through the order of the universe, to the 
attainment of ever more highly moral and spir- 
itual results ; the establishment of the kingdom 
of heaven. 

So, not only through the conscious coopera- 
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With Open Mind 

tion of men, but often far beyond such intended 
action, the forces at the heart of human history 
are helping the woman. The trend of the uni- 
verse is to the enthronement of the spiritual. 

What, now, in relation to the Gospel we pro- 
claim, does all this signify? What but this: 
that Christ the divine man, is the goal of his- 
tory. It is he to whom all tends from the be- 
ginning. Jesus is the true expression of the 
order of the universe at its culminating point. 
He is what it has meant from the first. 

In the birth of the child for which the dragon 
waited, it was not alone the woman who was in 
labor. The earth also shared those travail 
pains. Is not this the declaration of the Apos- 
tle, "the whole creation groaneth and travail- 
eth in pain together," * * * "waiting for the 
manifestation of the sons of God?" Christ, 
then, is not some heavenly interloper ; an alien 
life injected into the normal order of the 
world's history. He is the efflorescence of that 
history, its essential meaning at its culmination. 
For his production the order of the universe 
came into being; for the incarnation of the 
spirit of heaven in the life of the world. 

And this not in a single isolated instance, in 
the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the 
first-born among many brethren; type of that 
true redeemed manhood that is to be, when, 
through the travail of the universe, there shall 
be at last the perfect manifestation of the sons 
of God. 

In and through Jesus, our Lord, the essential 
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Earth Helped the Woman 

efficiency and movement of the universe, from 
the beginning find interpretation and expres- 
sion. In him that movement finds its ade- 
quate, ultimate leverage for the full attainment 
of its final aim — a humanity brought to its full 
possibilities in the glad dedication of itself to 
God. 

But in the age-long conflict with the evil, in 
the toil and struggle for the furtherance of the 
good; in the backward rush of the tide, which 
from time to time recurs, does the question 
force itself upon us— Ah! but what of the 
dragon? Is not he very real, and is not he too 
within the order of the universe? So indeed. 
But only as an incident ; a passing phase in the 
transition from the lower to the higher ; an as- 
pect of that vanity to which the creation has 
been subjected by its author in hope of the de- 
liverance into the liberty of the glory of the 
children of God, which surely awaits : — a deliv- 
erance to be wrought by the elimination of the 
dragon, through the operation of those forces 
which, from the first, have been energizing at 
the heart of the universe ; with the end that God 
shall be all, and in all. 

Here, then, is for us the word of inspiration. 
Ever "the earth helps the woman.' ' From the 
day when the mountains were brought forth to 
the hour when a child was born at Bethlehem ; 
and on from the song of the herald angels 
to that day when every creature which is in 
heaven and on the earth and under the earth 
and on the sea shall mingle their voices in that 

[125] 



With Open Mind 

new song of redemption consummated, from the 
Alpha to the Omega, from the beginning to the 
ending, the push of the order of the universe 
is to the promotion of spiritual ends. 

In the midst of this great onmoving order we, 
the disciples of Jesus, are set. It is our high 
responsibility, our great glory, to be consciously 
cooperating with him, for the promotion of the 
ends of righteousness and love; for the con- 
summation of a redeemed world. 

To us comes the inspiring assurance. In the 
prosecution of our high calling the universe is 
with us, not against us. The trend of the order 
of things is not antagonistic; it is not indif- 
ferent. It is our positive ally. That Infinite, 
Eternal Energy in whose presence we are, what- 
ever the field of its operation, is on our side; 
upbearing, promoting the spiritual ; eliminating 
the opposite; bringing most unpromising seed 
to abundant harvest. To us, thrilled by this 
vision, there comes ringing that trumpet call 
of the great apostle : 

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye 
steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the 
work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
your labor is not vain, in the Lord." 



[126] 



CHAPTER IX 
FEAR NOT 



o 



CHAPTER IX 
Feab Not 

Luke 2: 10 — And the angel said unto them, Fear not. 

F all the ills that mortals know, what is 



more distressing to the heart, what is more 
deforming, degrading to life than fear, that 
terror dread which blanches the cheek, drives 
the blood back upon the heart, sets the limbs to 
trembling, paralyzes effort; fills the soul with 
gloomy foreboding? And of all ills what more 
commonly experienced than this f Who has not 
known it? Who needs to be told of the misery 
of fear? 

In all the past of mankind, scarcely any ex- 
perience has been more universal and per- 
sistent. Like a black cloud it has over-hung 
the life of the world, casting its dark shadow 
over all things, transforming otherwise bright- 
est prospects into the gloom of night. 

Manifold have been the objects of dread, from 
manifold quarters assailing the spirit of man. 
Foremost among sources of apprehension has 
been men's thought of deity, the Unseen Power. 
In their endeavor to conceive the nature, the 
character of the source of our being, that tre- 
mendous force which energizes in the ongoing 
of the universe, expressing itself in tempest and 

[129] 



With Open Mind 

thunderbolt, as well as in the gentle zephyr and 
the mellow sunlight; shaking the earth with 
convulsions, hurling it along its orbit, wheel- 
ing the stars upon their courses, ushering men 
into existence, holding them in its grasp, buffet- 
ing them with the blows of fortune, snuffing 
them out like candles. In their endeavor to con- 
ceive this awful energy, dread superstitions 
have seized upon their souls. They have pic- 
tured to themselves the Eternal in whom we 
live, as a being of ferocity, cruel, inhuman, in- 
different to the troubles and sufferings of men, 
if not vindictive, delighting in torture ; and the 
dread of this awful Somewhat has filled their 
lives with gloom. By all conceivable means 
they have endeavored to placate this being, and 
to avert his fury, — by the offering of their pos- 
sessions, by the torturing of their bodies; by 
the sacrificing of their children. Far and wide 
over the world today are scattered the wit- 
nesses of this terror of the deity, in the sacred 
places which have been drenched in blood; 
the altars that have smoked with human 
sacrifice. 

Added to this dread of the Supreme, has been 
the fear of other supernatural beings, demons 
of the unseen, devils who inhabit the dark ; the 
foes of men, delighting in their misery, with 
power to rob them of what is precious, and to 
bring upon them fell disaster. 

Little as we may know of this in our own ex- 
perience, there are vast multitudes of people in 
the world who live constantly under the black 

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Fear Not 

shadow of this fear of supernatural foes. And 
even among those who are free from all such 
superstitious dread, how many there are whose 
lives are darkened by fear of the forces in the 
midst of which we live. How many there are on 
the Pacific coast whose minds are never free 
from the apprehension of earthquakes. How 
many in the middle west who can never see a 
dark cloud in the sky without the heart's sink- 
ing and the cheek's turning pale, through dread 
of the cyclone or the thunderbolt. How many, 
east, west, north and south, who are continually 
haunted by fear of miasma and contagion. To 
what multitudes the clear light of science has 
brought only darkness and foreboding by its 
revelation of the existence of microbes and their 
possibilities. 

And reference to these trembling souls sug- 
gests the significant fact that the increase of 
knowledge, the diffusion of intelligence, does 
not of itself bring diminution of fear; for one 
of its conspicuous results is to make us aware 
of causes of apprehension before unknown. And 
above and beyond all other occasions for fear 
stands the spectre waiting with the key: the 
death from which there is no escape, and that 
after death fraught with the greatest of all 
foreboding, the dread of the unknown and un- 
imaginable. 

Who of mortals is there who has not felt the 
icy hand of fear, from some quarter, clutching 
at his heart and turning the springtime of joy 
into the winter of forebodings ? And the effects 

[131] 



With Open Mind 

of fear are no less to be deplored that its sway 
is extended. 

There is not alone the inexpressible misery of 
haunting apprehension, calamity enough in it- 
self ; there is also the physical wretchedness of 
paralyzed and disordered functions, and of the 
diseases which this induces, and still further, 
beyond all other sources of evil, fear possesses 
the power to rob the soul of those qualities 
which characterize independent and noble man- 
hood. It turns the brave man into a coward, 
the generous into a beast of prey ; it palsies the 
soul of honor and transforms the truthful into a 
liar. Under its baleful influence the man of in- 
tegrity and high principle becomes the time- 
serving sycophant. It brutalizes the tender- 
hearted. No wild beast was ever so inhuman as 
the kindliest of men or of women seized by the 
panic of a shipwreck or of a burning building. 
At the baneful touch of fear all that is noblest 
in man shrivels and dies. Aptly has the writer 
of the epistle to the Hebrews described the vic- 
tims of fear as all their lifetime subject to 
bondage. 

Into this wide-spread condition of wretched- 
ness and little-worth the voice of Christmas 
speaks its cheering, ennobling, liberating word, 
" Fear not. " "Fear not." 

And why fear not, does anyone ask? Be- 
cause Christmas brings to us the good news of 
God. That is the central significance of Christ- 
mas. God is not to be dreaded. God is to be 
loved and trusted. In that little babe at Beth- 

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F ear Not 

lehem he speaks his word of love and of assur- 
ance to the world. In the life of that little babe 
now come to manhood; in his words of gentle- 
ness and truth, his deeds of kindness, his tender 
compassion, the heart of that Eternal One in 
whom we live unveils itself. God is not to be 
dreaded, but loved and trusted, and through 
that loving trust in the Eternal Goodness which 
men shall learn to exercise, all fear — all fear, 
from whatever source — shall be dissipated, 
forever blotted out. 

But is it asked, Are we not to fear God? Is 
not the fear of the Lord the beginning of wis- 
dom? Are we not told that to fear God and 
keep his commandments is the whole duty of 
man? Even so we are. Such are the words of 
the preacher in Ecclesiastes. But there is no 
greater source of misapprehension than the am- 
biguity of words. That fear of God which 
psalmist and wise men exhort us to cultivate, is 
not terror ; it is loving reverence, filial loyalty, 
worshipful obedience, — at the farthest remove 
from paralyzing, degrading fear, the fear of 
dread apprehension, the fear that is afraid. The 
deeper that fear of God of which the psalmist 
speaks, the less there will be of terror, the more 
of trustful peace, until it will eventuate in the 
perfect love, in which all fear is cast out. 

As terror of God gives place to trust in God, 
all other terror passes. No fear of unseen foes, 
physical or spiritual, remains ; for there are no 
such foes that are not under the power of the 
Infinite Goodness ; they can work no effect upon 

[133] 



With Open Mind 

us in contravention of his permission; and if 
God be for us who can be against us? For 
those who in firm faith have accepted the 
Christmas tidings of a loving God, and are 
lovingly in accord with him, all fear of disaster, 
of untoward circumstance has passed away. 

In the glad assurance that, "neither life, nor 
death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor height, nor depth,nor any other cre- 
ated thing shall be able to separate them from 
the love of God," they are sure that no real 
evil can befall them; that dark things as well 
as bright have precious significance ; that pain- 
ful as well as pleasant experience promotes the 
great, blessed, abiding values; that all things 
do indeed work together for good to them that 
love God; that all possible vicissitudes which 
can by any means beset our pathway through 
life shall be factors of value in the cultivation 
of that high personal development which is the 
purpose of divine Goodness for us. 

" Be it good or ill; be it what you will, 
It needs must help me on my road, — 
My rugged way to heaven, please God. 

The storm but hurries us where we would be ; 
Beyond the driving winds and raging sea." 

This is no figment of the imagination; no 
superstitious fancy. It is the actual, tested by 
experience a million times repeated. They who 
have accepted the Christmas tidings of a loving 
Author and Euler of the universe, and have 
dared to live as if those tidings were true, have 
found that the exhortation of the herald angel 

[134] 



F ear Not 

"Fear not," is fully warranted. The soul 
courageous in God has faced the ominous emer- 
gency thick-set with suspected enemies, to dis- 
cover, like Christian at the approach to the 
palace Beautiful, that the lions were chained. 
Or if seeming calamity has befallen, it has been 
only to reveal itself in another aspect ; and the 
troubles, the sufferings, the losses of life have 
proven to be among its most valuable assets. 
The experience of life has warranted the confi- 
dent words of Whittier — 

" We have no fear of any shape 
Which darkness may assume or fill. M 

And with all other fear which the Christmas 
tidings have banished, has gone the fear of 
death and of anything which may lie beyond 
death. For whatsoever direction into the undis- 
covered country our unending pilgrimage may 
take, it is certain we shall reach no point at 
which we shall fail to find the encompassing love 
of God already in advance of us. 

■ ' And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the muffled oar; 
No harm from him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where his islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond his love and care. " 

And the angel said unto them, "Fear not." 

If this banishment of fear from the hearts of 
men were the one, sole gift of Christmas to the 
world, what words could over-state its worth? 

[135] 



With Open Mind 

In the tranquil mind, itself, the spirit free from 
perturbation and dread, what a treasure one 
possesses ; to be able in quiet confidence to take 
upon one's lips those words of the psalmist: 
"In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; 
for thou Lord alone makest me dwell in safety. ' ' 

And a restful heart is but the first of the 
blessings which come to us through deliverance 
from fear. Body and mind are intimately 
linked. Upon peace of mind, physical well- 
being is closely dependent. A trustful soul is 
the best of all safe-guards against the assaults 
of disease; and the fact which present-day 
therapeutics is emphasizing above all others is, 
that in many cases the first step towards the re- 
moval of sickness from the body is the banish- 
ment of apprehension from the mind. Hope is 
the mother of health. 

And who can estimate the possibilities in the 
realm of character which have been set within 
the reach of us men by the Christmas tidings 
and the Christmas gift? As fear in the heart 
of men has been supplanted by confident reli- 
ance on God, cowardice has given place to 
courage; the timid poltroon of yesterday has 
become the intrepid champion of today. In 
place of the Peter cowering before the charge 
of a servant maid, has stood the Peter un- 
daunted in the presence of chief priests and 
rulers. 

With the banishment of fear the timorous 
opportunist becomes the man of boldly indepen- 
dent mind. Falsehood, the refuge of the f aint- 

[136] 



F ear Not 

hearted, is abandoned for fearless fidelity to 
truth. 

With the departure of brutalizing terror, that 
human sympathy, of which no heart is alto- 
gether destitute, finds opportunity to express 
itself ; the unfeeling, unreasoning ferocity of 
the panic-stricken gives place to the generous 
compassion, which gladly accepts suffering that 
others need not suffer, and we have the dying 
Sir Philip Sydney giving his last draught of 
water to the wounded soldier at his side, with 
the words "Thy need is greater than mine." 

To banish fear from the hearts of men is to 
open the way for all things noble. There is 
nothing we can do more efficacious to lighten 
the burden of troubled hearts or to elevate and 
ennoble human intercourse than to join the 
herald angel in his enterprise of expelling fear 
from the life of the world. We may do this in 
measure by uniting with present-day philan- 
thropy in its endeavor to remove those condi- 
tions which foster fear and to promote others 
of opposite effect: sanitary conditions which 
shall mitigate the fear of disease ; social, indus- 
trial, economic conditions which shall serve to 
dissipate the haunting fear of want ; Govern- 
ment conditions which shall deliver from the 
fear of injustice and oppression. 

There is little doubt that much may be ac- 
complished in this direction to relieve the de- 
plorable aspects of society and to give larger 
play to the nobler human sentiments and ten- 
dencies. But at the same time, we do well not 

[137] 



With Open Mind 

to be misled by the notion that any improvement 
of conditions, however notable, will ever be able 
to deliver the human spirit from the baleful 
sway of fear. For in this world of ours no 
combination of conditions, however favorable, 
can ever provide security against disaster. Hu- 
man life, human fortune, are, will always be 
precarious. 

The confidence which is based on conditions 
however favorable, will always find occasion for 
solicitude. The well-to-do as well as the poor 
are haunted by fear of loss and want. Apicius, 
a Eoman aristocrat, committed suicide to avoid 
starvation, though he left a fortune of half a 
million dollars. It is only the confidence which 
is independent of external conditions which can 
give undisturbed serenity to the spirit of man; 
and that confidence is to be found nowhere save 
in the Christmas tidings : the good news of God. 
For the certain end of all things mundane is 
decay and death. 

If we would have any large part with the 
herald angel in banishing fear from the world, 
we must find the ground of cheer to which we 
point men where he found it : in the loving care 
of the Eternal. 

And so let us take to our souls the glad 
tidings of the Christmas time, and say to men 
with confidence which shall carry conviction, 
"Fear not. Fear not. For Christ has lived. 
God is, and God is love. ' ' 

But have we seen the truth on all its sides? 
Has not a foremost educator of our time de- 

[138] 



Fear Not 

clared that the most important element in edu- 
cation is teaching the young what to fear? Is 
there nothing, then, of which to be afraid? 

There is indeed one thing : the thing which we 
call evil, sin; the rejection of the voice of duty; 
the one thing which puts us beyond God's abil- 
ity to help; the thing which is able to destroy 
both soul and body in Gehenna. Ah yes; be 
afraid of evil. We cannot fear it too much. 
But of whatsoever else, let us hear once more 
the inspiring word of the herald angel: Fear 
not. Trust God, nor be afraid. 



[139] 



CHAPTER X 
THE SECRET OF CONTENT 



CHAPTER X 

The Seceet op Content 

Phil. 4: 11-12 — I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, 
therein to be content. I know how to be abased and I know 
also how to abound: in everything and in all things have I 
learned the secret, both to be filled and to be hungry, both to 
abound and to be in want. 

TN order that these words of St. Paul may 
*- come to us with their legitimate force, we 
need to remember that they were written in a 
Roman prison. We need to hear, as the apostle 
wrote, the clank of the chain upon his wrist, 
which bound him to his Roman guard. We need 
to recall the privations he had suffered during 
his imprisonment, which now had been relieved 
by the gifts of these Christians at Philippi, and 
also the malicious diligence of the busybodies 
outside the prison in their endeavor to raise 
up affliction for him in his bonds. 

Having this picture of the apostle 's condition 
in mind, we shall be able better to appreciate 
the significance of his words, "I have learned 
in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. ' ' 
A lesson this, worth learning, surely: in all 
the vicissitudes of this checkered life to be of 
tranquil mind, cheerful, content. 

It means much, too, that these are the words 
of no mere ascetic; of one who knew nothing 

[143] 



With Open Mind 

of the worth of the world's good things because 
of never having possessed them, or of one who 
lacked the ability to enjoy them when possessed. 
Paul knew what it was to abound. Few have 
larger enjoyment of the objects of the world's 
ambition than he had known as a young man; 
few are better qualified by nature and educa- 
tion to appreciate them at their true worth. It 
is one fully qualified to enjoy the comforts and 
gladnesses of life, one keenly sensitive to its 
sorrows, sufferings and privations, who yet af- 
firms his discovery of the secret of great con- 
tent, regardless of the circumstances in which 
he may be placed. 

Is it not worth our while to inquire what is 
the key to this enviable state of mind, and to 
ask whether it be available for ourselves? 

If we note a very slight change in the trans- 
lation of this verse as it occurs in the Revised 
* Version, we may receive a suggestion as to the 
direction, at least, in which the secret of St. 
Paul's contentment is to be sought. The Com- 
mon Version reads, ' ' I have learned in whatso- 
ever state I am therewith to be content." The 
Revised Version has it, "I have learned in 
whatsoever state I am therein to be content." 
The change from "therewith" to "therein," 
what does it suggest? That the secret of Paul's 
content was not the state itself in which he 
might be ; it was not to be sought in the elements 
of the existing situation, but in something al- 
together apart from these. He was not con- 
tented with the situation; he was contented in 

[144] 



The Secret of Content 

the situation because the ground of his content- 
ment was something altogether outside of it; 
something of so great and satisfying worth 
that in comparison with it the discomforts 
of a Eoman dungeon seemed unworthy of 
consideration. 

We know how human love has power to work 
this great content and to transform privation, 
toil and hardship into trifles. Allan Cunning- 
ham sings, 

il Tho the wee wee cot maun be my bield, 
And my claething e'er sae mean, 
I wad lap me up rich in the fauds o' love, 
Heaven's armfu' ©' my Jean. " 

The young bride forsakes home, friends, lux- 
ury, to share with her lover the hardship and 
privation of the frontier. The humble cabin 
knows little of comfort and nothing of elegance ; 
but love lights it. Life within it is not mere en- 
durance, it is joy. Hard toil, pinching economy 
are trifles. Irradiated by love they possess a 
charm which the affluence of the palace cannot 
rival. And if later days bring a more luxurious 
home, it is not the luxury which constitutes its 
gladness. Still love is the source and secret of 
content. In default of it the most elegant sur- 
roundings would be but glittering wretchedness. 
So the apostle Paul had found something al- 
together apart from the mere circumstances of 
his lot which could fill with content any situa- 
tion; even that in which the companionship of 
human love itself was wanting; a secret which 
could transform the lonely prison cell into the 

[145] 



With Open Mind 

place of triumphant song. What was this 
secret? 

We shall find answer in the words of the 
apostle in another letter to other friends : "Our 
light affliction, which is for the moment, work- 
eth for us more and more exceedingly an eternal 
weight of glory ; while we look not at the things 
which are seen, but at the things which are not 
seen; for the things which are seen are tem- 
poral; but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 

Paul's eyes had been opened to a great realm 
of the unseen, enveloping these things of the 
tangible ; a realm of so great breadth and mean- 
ing that these material, visible things, the com- 
forts or discomforts of this mundane life, 
appeared relatively insignificant. In that realm 
of the unseen, not in this of the visible, are the 
true values. In comparison with those, these 
were worthy of little consideration. And such 
significance as these things of the present do 
possess, whether pleasing or painful, they de- 
rive not from themselves but from their rela- 
tion to that great unseen world-order, in which 
they are included. Their real import is appre- 
hended only when they are seen in their rela- 
tion to it. 

The vicissitudes of individual experience 
have meaning because of issues which follow 
from them in that invisible realm. In that 
realm the inscrutable puzzles of life find their 
solution. Hence, any transient pains, discom- 
forts, sufferings, can be accepted with content, 

[146] 



The Secret of Content 

because of the far more important things which 
life involves; because these themselves have 
outcome of real value in the realm of things 
which abide. 

That cloud which gathers about the moun- 
tain top in the beautiful mid-summer day, that 
precipitation of moisture so that it can be seen, 
bears witness to a condition of humidity which 
exists all unseen in all the surrounding 
atmosphere. 

So our present life in this world, with its in- 
cidents, pleasing or painful, is but the transient 
and localized coming to view of that vast, all- 
embracing unseen in which the solution of all 
puzzles is to be sought: the real abiding satis- 
faction is to be found. "With this great vision 
of the real unseen, there came to the apostle : 

First — rest for the intellect, the puzzling 
mind. One great source of our discontent is 
perplexity, intellectual confusion. We are dis- 
contented not so much because the things them- 
selves which we are called to endure are so 
intolerable. Compared with what human forti- 
tude is able to bear, with what we ourselves 
have sometimes endured, they are not worthy of 
mention. The real root of our discontent is 
that these things are inexplicable. We cannot 
understand why they should be ; what warrant 
there is for them in the case of beings so sus- 
ceptible to suffering; in a universe under the 
control of divine love. If we were able to see 
that the occasions of our discontent had mean- 
ing, that some great end was being served by 

[147] 



With Open Mind 

them, we could accept them and far more with 
exultation : as the soldiers of Japan, in the late 
war, under the inspiration of patriotism ac- 
cepted with enthusiasm such suffering and sac- 
rifice as far transcends anything we ever have 
experienced. 

Just this dissipation of intellectual confusion 
the apostle Paul had experienced, through vis- 
ion of the unseen. Frequently we find him 
speaking of the revelation of the Mystery hid 
from ages and generations which had been 
granted to him. He had caught glimpses of the 
great divine purpose running through the ages, 
'including all the incidents of human experience 
in its sweep. From this height of vision he was 
able to perceive that nothing was meaningless. 
Everything, the dark as well as the bright, the 
painful as well as the pleasing, stood related 
to the great whole ; had its contribution to make 
to the great and glorious consummation. In 
this satisfying of the perplexed mind was one 
great factor of content. Henceforth the pain- 
ful incident of experience was not something to 
be merely bewailed. It was a summons to for- 
titude, that through its endurance the things 
worth being might be. 

" Then .courage soul, nor hold thy strength in vain: 
In faith o'ercome the steep God sets for thee; 
For past the Alpine summit of great pain 
Lieth thine Italy." 

As a second factor in his great content, Paul's 
vision of the unseen had brought him rest of 
heart. Important as is the part which satisfac- 

[148] 



The Secret of Content 

tion of the questioning intellect contributes to 
(quietness of soul, it is still true that we live 
in our affections. No amount or positiveness 
of knowledge can silence the discontent of a 
hungry heart. To this, love and love alone is 
adequate. 

Most impressively it had been borne in upon 
the apostle that the great unseen which envel- 
oped him was not uninhabited. On the contrary, 
it was more than anything else the dwelling 
place of a great personality. Into the apostle's 
life that personality had made way for himself 
with a power which was irresistible, and an au- 
thority which admitted no question. 

Conspicuous above all other incidents in the 
history of St. Paul had been that experience on 
the way to Damascus, when an unseen person 
had laid hold of him, mastered him, lifted him 
up and started him on his great career. From 
that day on, this unseen friend had been a con- 
stant presence in his life ; revealing a heart of 
infinite friendliness, guiding the apostle, sus- 
taining him, giving direction and effect to all 
his activity. In the fellowship of this divine 
friend Paul had found comfort, the satisfaction 
and inspiration of a hungry heart. This unseen 
companionship had brought him quickening of 
his intellect, strengthening of purpose, sustain- 
ment in all great achievement. This friendship 
of the unseen Christ had come to be more preci- 
ous to him than all things else. For it he could 
gladly suffer the loss of all things. In it the 
craving of the soul for love was more than satis- 

[149] 



With Open Mind 

fied. It was able to do for him all and far more 
than dearest human love can ever do to make 
insignificant the painful incidents of outward 
circumstance. To it he pointed as the secret of 
his great content. I can do all things in him 
that strengtheneth me. For St. Paul the love 
of this divine friend had come to be the chief 
good of being. For him to live was Christ ; to 
die was to depart and be with Christ, which was 
far better. Under the inspiration of this 
mighty love, this great divine friendship, the 
disagreeable incidents of life, toil, privation, 
imprisonment, became trifles unworthy of men- 
tion ; the song in the heart was proof against all 
the chill and darkness of the Roman dungeon. 

One other element in that content which was 
born of St. Paul's vision of the unseen was a 
great hope : scope for the energies of his soul. 
His contentment was not the resignation of the 
defeated, but the composure of an intense, am- 
bitious, forceful spirit. If there was ever an 
electric battery in human form, it surely was 
the apostle Paul. He had lived a life of amaz- 
ing energy and amazing results. Out to the 
fruits of his aostivity his thoughts were contin- 
ually running, as the chain clanked which bound 
him to his Roman guard. These Philippian 
Christians to whom he was writing were a part 
of his achievement : the first-fruits of his labors 
on the continent of Europe. As he wrote the 
words "I have learned in whatsoever state I 
am, therein to be content,' ' he could feel again 
upon his back the cut of the scourge at the cost 

[150] 



The Secret of Content 

of which he had won these Philippians to the 
faith and purchased for them the consideration 
of the local authorities. Once again his blood 
was stirred with the thrill of exultation as the 
affront to his Roman citizenship was expiated 
by the humble apologies of the provincial offi- 
cials. 

The ambition of the apostle was still with 
him. Nowhere do we find more emphatic ex- 
pression of it than in this letter. These chap- 
ters bristle with the confidence that his past 
efficiency is of perpetual significance, and with 
expectation of possibilities of achievement 
which the future has in store. Paul saw his own 
life and work as part of a great enduring en- 
terprise, which that unseen divine friend was 
prosecuting in human history; whose success 
was assured, and which was laden with blessing 
unspeakable for the children of men, here and 
hereafter. 

To the success of that great enterprise his 
bonds and enforced idleness were tributary, no 
less than the proclamation of the good 
tidings and the planting of churches. In 
view of its glorious outcome, transient inci- 
dents of personal experience, comfortable or 
uncomfortable, were of trifling significance. In 
the inspiration of the great issue and of the 
possible contribution to it of his present ex- 
periences, he was full of tranquillity whatever 
the experiences themselves might be. 

It is needless to pursue our questioning fur- 
ther. In these three factors we find adequate 

[151] 



With Open Mind 

ground for St. Paul's content: a great vision, 
a great divine friend, a great hope. 

It is worthy of our consideration that this 
latter was not a transient but an eternal hope, — 
a hope stretching far on beyond the earthly so- 
journ. 

It is a tendency with some in our time to seek 
the sole incentive for endurance and achieve- 
ment in this present mundane life ; and to dis- 
credit the eye and heart catching inspiration 
from the possibilities of the hereafter. This 
tendency, notwithstanding its assumption of 
superiority, is shallow and unperceiving. It is 
the mood of mind of the inexperienced and the 
specially favored, with little sense of the trag- 
edy of human life. For vast multitudes, aye, 
for the majority of mankind, life from the mun- 
dane point of view is a failure, both as regards 
enjoyment and accomplishment. 

If Paul had not had outlook beyond the jaws 
of the lion or the sword thrust of the execu- 
tioner which awaited him, there would have 
been scant basis for his great content. Life in 
this world is good to make character ; to fashion 
by its experiences, when nobly borne, those who 
are to be members of a blessed society in the 
hereafter. And that is about all that life really 
is good for. We believe that such a society is 
increasingly to be established in this world, in- 
deed; and that to labor for it is the obligation 
nearest, most pressing; yet with the constant 
recognition that this is only in anticipation of 
an enduring existence in other realms. 

[152] 



The Secret of Content 
We echo the sentiment of George Eliot : 

" O may I join the choir invisible 

Of those immortal dead who live again 
In minds made better by their presence. " 

But if this is our only enduring existence ; if 
the best, sole outcome of life is to contribute a 
modicum to the upward movement of a world, 
whose not distant destiny is to be snuffed out 
in volcanic eruption or to be frozen to death in 
the cold of the inter-stellar spaces, the possibil- 
ity is an utterly insufficient basis for such 
triumphant contentment, such unconquerable 
optimism as that of Paul. 

It is not impossible that, at times, there has 
been disproportionate stress upon the hereafter, 
whether in the way of dread or of anticipation. 
Other-worldliness may have been cultivated to 
the neglect of the present world. But the op- 
posite extreme is quite as false and as faulty. 
It is indeed the powers and possibilities of the 
world to come which impart to the present its 
true value. It is the possible oak which gives 
significance to the acorn. The egg comes to its 
true interpretation only in terms of the eagle. 
Nothing but the vision of the eternal can save 
the mundane from deteriorating into the sordid, 
the sensual, the despairing. 

A better and an eternal portion hereafter ; a 
continuing city to come; a building, not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens; these are 
what impart undying worth to the present and 
clothe it with supernal value. It is the vision 
of the outreaching future which makes human 

[153] 



With Open Mind 

existence great and warrants the noble dignity 
of Browning's words in Rabbi Ben Ezra — 

" Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be, 
The last of life for which the first was made: 

Our times are in His hand 
Who saith, ' A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half ; trust God : see all nor be afraid l f " 

What but the glimpse of the undying could 
kindle the great hope, could create the great 
soul of Abt Vogler as he sings — 

1 i . . . Ay, what was, shall be. 
Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name! 
Builder and Maker, thou, of houses not made with hands! 
What, have fear of change from thee Who art ever the same? 
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power ex- 
pands? 
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as 

before ; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more ; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
Are music gent up to God by the lover and the bard; 
Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by and by. J ' 

These words so true to human aspiration 
which Browning puts into the mouth of the 
great musician, what are they but the echo of 
the triumphant declaration, "I have learned in 
whatsoever state I am therein to be content"? 

In its broad outlines the life of Paul is typi- 
cal. Most of us know both aspects of his ex- 
perience. We know, in measure at least, what 

[154] 



The Secret of Content 

it is to abound and what it is to be abased. In 
these shifting, perplexing vicissitudes, the im- 
penetrable darkness through which we grope, 
the rugged steeps we painfully elimb, the 
crosses we must bear, the stale, insipid flats of 
life we traverse, — in all these the confident 
bouyancy of the apostle is available for us ; at- 
tainable by us the uplift of soul out of which it 
is possible to say with absolute sincerity, "I 
have learned in whatsoever state I am therein 
to be content.' 7 

Within the reach of us all are the factors 
which lifted him superior to all vicissitude. The 
great vision, the great friend, the great endur- 
ing opportunity. In the apprehension of these, 
there is for us, as for him, the great, calm, ef- 
ficient, triumphant life. 



[155] 



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